


A Circle Is The Most Efficient Shape

by MisterMeowMeow



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Magical Artifacts, Magical Theory (Harry Potter), No Angst, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:34:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27489655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisterMeowMeow/pseuds/MisterMeowMeow
Summary: In one world, the evil System Lord Ra was thrown off Earth by his rebelling slaves. Finding no way of destroying it, they buried what they believed to be the source of his evil in the eternal sands of Egypt, to never again release him into the world.In another, the errant slaves were more successful in destroying it - using their primitive magics to shatter the ring into pieces. The desert buried the fragments of the gate in the endless sand, hidden beneath cover stones promising great danger and terror if they were ever removed.But - as a certain Nox may say - the very young do not always do as they are told.An attempt at truly meshing the canons of Harry Potter and the Stargate Franchise, rather than going the more common route of placing one character from either canon into the other. Gen, no bashing of any kind. Rating for safety, I'm unsure how graphic this will become (Stargate can be rather bloody at times).
Comments: 28
Kudos: 31





	1. Prologue: Lost in the Sand

**_15th of July,1928 - Giza, Egypt_ **

Gul-Rûmn's Human disguise was itching.

This was usually not a problem, but the itch was positioned in such a way that even he could understand scratching said itch would be perceived as a very indecent action when translated to his Human disguise.

Curse the Humans for being so tall, and so disgustingly moist all the time.

It was taking all his goblin stubbornness (of which he had a lot) to concentrate on the excavation down the hill he was standing on rather than how disgusting being a Human felt.

"Foreman! Foreman, we found something!"

The call ripped him out of another mental rant, and he craned his neck towards the man breathing heavily behind him, hands on his knees. No doubt he'd run up the hill.

"What is it?" Gul asked, barely masking his contempt for the malodorous Human.

"The scripture was correct, this is the place it is buried. We found one of the cover stones, and the warning matches!" The man (Gul had not bothered to learn the Human's name) said quickly, and despite himself, Gul was becoming excited.

Him and his brother Gal, employees of the Gringotts Archeology Department, had spent too much time in this accursed desert, chasing mirage after mirage.

Gal and him knew that it was a punishment for slighting Hrk, their superior, but now an end was in sight.

"Show me, show me! Have you translated the inscription yet?"

* * *

**_17th of July,1928 - Giza, Egypt_ **

Excavating the entire casket was the work of two days, and what they could translate of the inscriptions lit the fire of hope in the two disguised brothers. Finally, after seven months of suffering heat and disgusting, sweaty Human skins, they could return to the blessed underworld and hopefully never see the sun again.

Gul himself was busy with a shovel, digging out the buried casket, while his brother was kneeling on the cover itself, slowly translating the writing.

"This seal protects us from the Ring of Ra, Let his evil stay locked beneath these stones, Let no man or woman ever lift them off their socket, lest he be released once more." said Gal, his eyes slowly wandering across the hieroglyphs.

Switching to Kûhn, the goblin language (which was often referred to as "Gobbledegook" by the wizards, to the goblins' infinite annoyance), the brothers conferred without the muggle workers hearing anything they shouldn't. 

_"What do you think, Brother? A wraith, perhaps? Or an especially powerful mummy?"_ Said Gal from his perch on the casket. The workers had heard them speak the strange language many times, and few thought anything of it.

 _"This 'Ring of Ra' sounds more like an object to me. A cursed piece of Jewelry, mayhaps, but I don't see how a single object could need a casing this large, regardless of how spelled it is."_ Argued Gul, ramming his shovel into the sand and squinting over its handle at his brother.

 _"Decidedly non-mundane, still. I think we may need to call in the big guys before any of the archeologists here get the idea of opening the casket."_ Conceded Gal. At his brother's nod, he slid off the cover and made towards the brothers' tent to contact the Archeology department through their communication stone.

* * *

**_18th of July,1928 - Giza, Egypt_ **

_"And by now, the casket should be fully excavated, Sir Hrk."_ finished Gal, walking beside his supervisor.

_"Good work Rûhmn, both to you and your brother. Send the mundanes away, and remember to pay them. We don't need a riot on hand, not on this site."_

Gal and Gul walked away, and a few minutes later, the supervisor could hear the distant ringing of a bell, the sound of which caused all the mundanes to throw down their shovels and pickaxes and make off towards from where it had rang. As soon as no Human remained in the pit, Hrk slid an inconspicuous ring off his finger. The Human he had appeared to be bled away, the disguise disintegrating into dust and settling onto the ground, where it was indistinguishable from the surrounding sand. In the Human's place now stood a Goblin - slightly shorter than the squat man he had appeared to be, the slight scaling along his arms and neck, the pointed ears and slit pupils being the most obvious difference beside his stone-colored skin.

 _"Finally. Curse these disgustingly moist Human disguises."_ he groaned, stretching so hard his spine made a cracking sound.

He turned around and whistled through his teeth, which prompted the small group of goblins who'd come with him to exit the arrival tent and begin setting up their tools and workstations. The site now fell under the purview of Gringotts Archeology Ltd, which entitled its parent company Gringotts Bank to claim any and all artifacts found there. It was rather ironclad, all things considered, and Gringotts had weathered many a legal battle to amend the contract, all of which it had won decisively. Good documentation was not among the wizards' strengths.

After setting up several defensive enchantments to protect the site from prying eyes, the Goblin excavation could truly begin.

Being denied the secret of Wandlore was a major thorn in their species' side, but they had made do over the centuries. The goblins had discovered the secret of enchanting metal while it was still molten, knowledge they jealously guarded despite repeated attempts to steal it. They used this knowledge to major effect. Every tool used by the Goblins was in some way enchanted, and the magic held onto it on a level deeper than wizards could ever hope to reach with their pathetic charmcraft. Using these enchanted shovels, brushes, chisels and spades, the site was excavated in no time, revealing that the stone casket holding (possibly) an evil spirit or a cursed object was situated upon a platform hewn from the local bedrock.

All inscriptions had been translated, but given few clues as to what could be contained within the stone, and thus it was decided to call in a curse-breaker to crack open the cover and peek inside.

Maybe they would even survive! how about that.

* * *

**_20th of July,1928 - Giza, Egypt_ **

Gringotts eventually sent one of the local cursebreakers, an egyptian wizard in employ of the Archeology Department of Alexandria, to set up defensive shields around the casket, open it and hopefully determine what was inside.

After waving his damnable wand around and speaking nonsense for a few minutes, the team of goblins gathered at the edge of the sizzling golden dome that wrapped around the stone platform, the casket and the Human standing beside it. Said Human slowly raised his wand, spoke the hover charm and caused the cover stones to soundlessly lift themselves from the container they had been sealing. When nothing happened, he carefully guided the slabs of rock clear of the shield and set them down outside of the dome, then slowly peeked into the now opened casket.

After poking around inside it for a few minutes, he made the hand sign for "all clear" and the golden dome popped like a soap bubble, showering the slightly annoyed Goblins in golden sparkles.

Their annoyance was short-lived, however, as they beheld the contents of the casket - the shattered fragments of a metallic ring, adorned with constellations, filled with wires and crystals of various colors and sizes. And beneath the middle stone, a large, red gem, surrounded by the same constellations as were present on the ring, gleamed in the setting sun.

* * *

**_1st of January, 1965 - London, England_ **

"And thus I decree, by order of the Minister of Magic and the Wizengamot, that the contents of Secure Storage Unit 7443 be seized immediately as reparation for the Curse of Dunwich, which was released by your curse-breakers just two months ago."

Ran'gr ground his teeth together in anger - A team of green curse-breakers sent on a routine training mission into some marshland had accidentally stumbled upon a _real_ curse, and foolishly attempted to break it rather than report back so a more experienced team could deal with the situation. Unsurprisingly, they had failed, one was dead and the other two were in a magically-induced coma while their limbs were being un-withered and their eyes regrown.

Still, the judgment was just - Gringotts had agreed to take responsibility for their trainees, and thus they were now obligated to pay for any damages.

But then, Ran'gr smiled. They wanted 7443? Well. They could have it. All it held was some worthless egyptian scrap that had been gathering dust for 20 years.

"Of course, Mister Secretary. Gringotts always honors the word of the law. Please, let me sign the release form..."

* * *

**_30th of May, 1966 - London, England_ **

A wand poked from beneath the faceless robe, quickly taking over the courier's levitation charm. Shuddering, the intern pressed the "up" button in the elevator, glad to put some distance between himself and the Department of Mysteries.

Meanwhile, the two large crates he'd delivered were quickly floating through dim corridors, past sunken doors and warped bricks, before they pushed open a large double door and softly set down in the middle of the room.

This room was special, even for the Department of Mysteries - it was large, far larger than could have fit into the floor plan. One wall was dominated by several corridors leading straight into darkness, the other by a glowing ball of fire hovering over a slight dip in the ground, slightly distorting the air around it. Above, the ceiling seemed to be nonexistent, and instead a glorious vista of stars was visible, various constellations clearly marked through glowing lines. The room tapered off opposite the door in a semi-circle, and the curved wall was lined with several tables, upon which strange device after strange device sat.

At the center of this organized chaos, three faceless robes identical to the one that had greeted the courier at the elevator were buzzing about, occasionally shouting nonsensical things at eachother. Finally, the hectic scramble seemed to reach its peak, and one of the devices exploded, sending a wave of force through the entire room. The door slammed closed again, and all three cloaks turned towards the crates, one of which was now tilted against the wall, knocked over by the blast.

"And what might this be?" said one of the robes in an indistinct voice.

"I don't know. Did you see who put it here?" said another, voice identical to the first.

"Must've been someone. Let's look inside!" called the third, already gliding across the floor towards the bigger crate. A quick slash of a wand had it slide forwards, and a jab had it unfold like the petals of a flower. Within, there was a pile of shards made from strange metal, crystal and wiring, decorated with the same constellations that gleamed overhead.

"I can see why this was delivered to us." said one of the robes.

"Let's put it into storage and look at it later. I want to get this working." suggested another, and all three nodded in agreement. The crate folded back together, lifted into the air alongside the other, and floated out the door once more.

They did not look at it later.

* * *

**_2nd of May, 1998 - Hogwarts, Scotland_ **

Harry could see nothing besides Voldemort's hate-filled eyes, and felt the inhuman man's will attempt to intrude on his own, distract him long enough for a spell to break through and end him.

He would not let it. Using reserves Harry did not know he had, he would twist his wand one last time, pouring everything into his shout of _"Expelliarmus!"_ at the same time as Voldemort's voice hissed _"Avada Kedavra._ " into the silent courtyard. Harry expected their wands to connect as they had before, and realized too late that Voldemort was not using his own wand - he wielded the Elder Wand, the one that could not be beaten - and just as he prepared to dive to the side, the two spells collided in mid-air, and appeared to fight. For a brief moment, both spells combined into a golden star that showered their surroundings in light, and then the combined spells exploded backwards, towards Voldemort, who was ripped apart by the roaring magical energies. The Elder Wand slipped from his grasp, and Harry caught it in his own.

As he felt the wand singing in his grasp like his own had done so long ago, he realized that the Elder Wand had done what it was made to do - beaten its master's enemy.

The cheers were deafening.

* * *

**_3rd of May, 1998 - Hogsmeade, Scotland_ **

When Harry awoke, it was to a pounding head in a strange bed. Luckily, there was nobody beside him, because he could for the life of him not remember how he had gotten there.

When the battle was won, most of the enemy fighters had thrown down their wands and surrendered, and those who had continued fighting were quickly subdued. After the battle had ended, Harry had been swept up in a crowd of people, lifted above their heads and carried off to Hogsmeade, where he'd been congratulated and hugged so much his arm and back still ached. Then, someone had pressed a lit glass of burning liquid into his hand, and his memories turned hazy.

The last thing he could remember was dancing with someone, but he could for the life of him not remember who it was.

So when Aberforth Dumbledore slammed open the door, Harry feared the worst - until said grouchy old man threw a small vial of potion at him and told him that his friends were waiting downstairs.

"And don't you dare come here again when you're drunk off your knocker, Potter! I'm not fond of strangers sleeping on my sofa!" he shouted, before the door slammed shut once more.

Harry downed the potion, sighing in relief as his headache bled away into a floaty warmness, and looked around. He was indeed on a sofa, not a bed, and from the looks of it, this was Aberforth's living room.

He still had all his clothes - and the Elder Wand, which was in his holster (hadn't he put it into the expanded bag?) - so after shaking the cobwebs from his head, he exited the room and slowly walked downstairs, seeing the 'Ministry Six' (as the papers had started calling them) crowded around one of the tables.

"Harry!" shouted Hermione, causing him to avert his head, the headache piercing through the potion a little. Hermione seemed to understand, because she spoke more softly.

"Harry. We were worried. You disappeared sometime yesterday, and we only found you because Aberforth was complaining about you taking up his sofa." She looked him over, as though checking for injury, a look he remembered from their time on the run.

"What, did you think I'd leave you guys alone in the dust?" he said, letting himself be pulled towards their friends.

"No, Harry, we thought you might have gotten captured, or killed, by some Death Eater out for revenge! Honestly, getting as drunk as you were yesterday isn't wise." Hermione said in a slightly chiding tone.

"Well you know me, Hermione, I'm usually a beacon of wisdom. No idea what got into me yesterday." Harry grinned.

"Harry, mate, we won! We did it! It's over!" said Ron once Harry was sat at the table, mindful of his hangover. Still, the mood around the table was jolly.

"That it is, Ron, guys, that it is. I don't know about you, but I could definitely use a vacation right about now."

"True that.", "Yeah, me too", "Same here" came various responses. They quickly made plans for a two-month trip to some southern island, entirely owned by wizards, which Harry forgot the name of - he simply basked in the presence of his friends, content to let them plan out a vacation or holiday or whatever without the shadow of Voldemort hanging over their heads.

 _I'm free, now._ realized Harry. _Free to do whatever I want to do._

He laughed, freer than he had ever done so, and the others looked questioningly at his outburst.

"I just realized - we're free. Free from all expectations, we never have to fight again."

Little did they know, their greatest adventure yet was only just beginning.


	2. A Proposition

**_4th of June, 1998 - Hawai'i, The Pacific Ocean_ **

Harry had never... relaxed, before. It was an ever so slightly new experience to him, so unlike what he'd done before.

In the beginning, it was actually difficult - having never had the opportunity to actually untense from the worries of life, he found it hard to just "let go" of things. Once the euphoria that accompanies any victory passed, he began worrying for the future.  
Would the Ministry simply continue on as normal? Would nothing change? The first time this thought occurred to him, he naturally asked Hermione, who of course had an answer for him.

"Hermione," he'd said, "What happens now? How do we make sure a second Voldemort doesn't happen?"

She'd looked at him in that way she always did when he or Ron said something naive, and answered, "Harry. Obviously there are wheels in motion. Kingsley and the rest of the Order are planning on getting one of their own into the post of Minister, and then plan to restructure the government to be more democratic. Once this is accomplished, they'll focus on pushing through progressive policies and hopefully chip away at the old Lords in the Wizengamot. The fact that most of the laws that insure their power are relatively new helps our side there - we can simply argue that they're a hindrance in the fight against evil and that they allowed Voldemort to rise."

With that thorough answer in mind, Harry ought to have been satisfied.

But he wasn't.

He'd made a plan before Tom's downfall, of what he would do once the dark lord was beaten, and it involved traveling the world, getting away from England and letting things sort themselves out.

But in the calamitous years that followed that vow, he'd seen it all - the Ministry falling to Voldemort's demands, the Aurors that were supposed to protect the wizarding public instead prosecuting them. For Merlin's sake, half of the Muggleborns that had been "disappeared" after Voldemort conquered the ministry were still unaccounted for. Not to mention, things were shaping up to repeat themselves, and Lucius Malfoy had come before the Wizengamot and gained a full pardon after his impassioned speech on the "evil Half-Blood's Imperius Curse", and what it had made him do, and how charitable a man he usually was.

Ultimately, Harry's greatest fear was that he'd travel for a while, and then return to a Britain which was worse than when he'd left, instead of better. And everyone knew that Britain's magical world could not take another civil war. Already too many wizards and witches had been killed, imprisoned or simply fled the country. All those that remained were either 'Mitläufer' (to quote the Nuremberg Trials), Death Eaters that got away or those valiant few that still saw hope in the nation.

And these were the thoughts that swirled around his head as he lay, splayed out on a towel, on the beach of a tropical island, and the thoughts that ultimately prevented him from relaxing.

He was eventually disturbed from this spiral by a person, who sat herself down beside him.

Tilting up his glasses, which he'd charmed into shades, he saw Luna - flighty, fragile, severe Luna. Luna, who had fought beside him in the war, who had thought it self-evident that a battle would need to be fought, who had not fled even when all seemed lost.

"Harry Potter." she spoke, looking out over the gentle sea.

"Luna Lovegood", he answered. She smiled slightly.

"You don't know how to stop, do you. The thoughts swirl around your head like water snakes, flying in and out of your ears and eyes. They won't give you peace. And your Humberdinger has gotten even fatter, not smaller, like those of the others."

Were it anyone else, Harry would accuse them of thinly-veiled innuendo, but with Luna, he was well accustomed to her way of speaking.

"You're right, Luna. I just... I worry about home. Even now, even with everything that's happened, I still worry. It just seems like they're making the exact same mistakes again."

Luna smiled at him over her massive glasses.

"Well, Harry. Maybe you should tell them yourself?" she said, before standing up and skipping down the beach.

Harry looked after her for a long moment.

* * *

That night, the group of six met in their hotel on the magical island. Hidden away centuries ago, this island formed the secret last landmass in the Hawaiian island chain, home to all its magic users and also its local magical school.

They were comfortably sunken into large bean-bag chairs, clutching exotic alcohols, and talking animatedly about some spell or another they'd seen that day. There were three cities on the island, originally based on the three castes of wizard or witch as had existed there, but not simply inhabited by those who wanted to live there. Being wholly magical, this society was much more open with grand displays of magic, and Neville was attempting to conjure an illusion to show the others a street performer he'd seen that day.

"And then he... he swung his hands, and there was a wave of mist that caught the sunlight just so -" the illusion collapsed once more, the glowing image dissolving into smoke, "-I can't do it. I don't know how he did it, but the mist caught the sunlight, and turned into a rainbow. And then he bent the rainbow around himself, and it looked like he was surrounded by a tornado of color. It was amazing."

Once Hermione had wheedled the performer's location from Neville, as well as a promise to seek him out the next day, the group fell into an easy silence. It was then that Harry felt it the right time to speak up.

"What do you think we should do next?" was all he said. He was slightly tipsy from his drink (a carved out coconut with something very cold and sparkly inside), and the others were too, so his question took a little moment to process.

"Next?"

"You know, once this is over, once we return home. I don't think the battle is won, so to say."

"Harry, I know what you mean, but can't we enjoy the moment?" pleaded Ginny, situated where she was beside him. Harry was unsure of how he felt about her - in the heat of the battle, a relationship had made sense, but they had stagnated over the months since the battle. Both had quietly agreed to put their relationship on pause, and secretly, Harry felt relieved.

"I can't. Not with what's going on back home. Did you guys hear? Malfoy got pardoned, and he's started talking about 'vile half-bloods' cursing upstanding purebloods. It's in the Prophet."

"Oh, that's bullshit. Everyone knows he's guilty!" shouted Ron, his face reddening. He was a great friend, had proven himself many times over, but with alcohol in his system his heart, so to speak, fell off his sleeve and started walking around.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I want to actually have a seventh year, and maybe get my _bloody_ NEWTs already." interjected Hermione, a slight reddening of the cheeks the only obvious indicator of tipsiness - alongside the swear word. She was usually big on not saying those. She clinged glasses with Luna, who mumbled something that sounded like agreement.

"Didn't you want to become an Auror, Harry?" said Neville, leaning forward, carefully balancing his tall glass with one hand.

"I did, yeah. But I don't know if I still do. I just don't want to fight any dark lords anymore. I want to change things, change the world, but not by fighting." He scrunched up his face in an exaggerated notion of disgust.

The group fell into a silence, each member thinking about the question. One by one, they came to the same conclusion. They'd just achieved a great thing, and none of them _truly_ knew what to do, now that it was over.

It was Hermione who delivered an answer.

"Guys. Long shot, but... we could become Unspeakables."

"Unspeakables?" said Harry, incredulously, "Don't those just sit around and do creepy magical things?"

"Actually, Harry," interjected Neville, "Remember my uncle, Algie"

Harry nodded, curious as to where Neville was going with this.

"He's one. i think I told you that already, but I don't remember right about now. Well, anyway, they're not really supposed to tell anyone what they're about - but my uncle works with mind magic stuff, and he found a way around the secrecy Oath. Those guys do a lot more than just sit around in their hole and be weird. For example, there's several departments - we saw a couple when we went there, like the room with the clocks and things, that's Time, the one with the veil your... your Sirius fell through, that was Death, and so on - and each one does something different. For example, there's one, under Svalbard, that is a vault with samples of most magical plants in the world, even extinct ones."

"That sounds like something for you, Neville," Hermione commented, and carried on Neville's dropped thread, "Oh, and Harry - the fact that you, and sorry for dragging up memories, survived Death would make you very interesting the Death ones. And not as a test subject either, the Unspeakables are probably still bound by the law, but a first-hand account of the Afterlife would be... invaluable. Not to mention the you-know-whats." said Hermione, having already pulled out a notebook.

Were it anyone else, Harry would be offended for mentioning his brief jaunt beyond the veil, but it was Hermione, his best friend. Or was it second best friend? Could you have two best friends?

She was right, though.

"You know... that actually sounds pretty good. But still, can we _do_ anything from that position? Or would we just research stuff in secret?" Harry still had his doubts - but somehow, he felt like this was the correct path.

Neville spoke up again, "Well. I only know one, but from what my uncle told me, people _listen_ when an Unspeakable, you know, _speaks,_ " he snorted, "They're usually experts, and everyone respects their opinions. I know that Algie spoke with higher-ups in the Ministry really often, even Dumbledore when he was still Warlock - so I think if you really want to change the world, then you can't really go more influential than becoming the person who the powerful rely on to make decisions. Even the Ministers respect the Unspeakables. Even _Fudge_ was swayed by my uncle, and I don't know about you guys, but that says a _lot_."

That sealed it for Harry. Unsure if it was the alcohol speaking or himself, he lifted up his coconut, watching as his friends one-by-one lifted their own assorted alcohol containers.

"To us!" he said, and they klinged/clacked their drinks together over the table.

It was decided.

* * *

Over the next few weeks, they began a slow line of communication - first with Neville's Uncle, Algernon Longbottom, and through him, a contact with the Unspeakables themselves. 'Algie', as he'd asked they call him, indicated amusement at their wish to become Unspeakables themselves, but did not discourage them.

At the beginning, communication was short and precise, their contact's letter simply signed with a stylized "X", but after some time, their contact seemed to ease up significantly.

Whoever was behind the 'X' seemed to size them up, and their letters began holding seemingly random questions, hypotheticals and various small tasks - through which the group quickly became accustomed to working in a team. Their communication happened weekly, when the intercontinental post delivered wizarding mail to the island, and their "assignments" varied greatly. One week, they were directed to collect as many different plants on the island as possible, a task that Neville, Luna and Hermione were perfect for - another, they were directed to investigate what 'X' called a "local contact". Harry and Ron found that they were naturals at investigation, and nothing slipped past their rigorous scrutiny. They eventually ended up in a small café on one of the muggle islands, and were approached by a nondescript man. When he slipped past them, they exchanged the box they'd found inside a trashed apartment for the one the man was carrying - which contained nothing but a note of congratulations from 'X'.

The process was strange and very unexpected, but also quite fun.

Harry also celebrated his first Birthday, completely free from the threat of the Dursleys. At 18, he now counted as an adult in both the magical and muggle worlds. It was without a doubt the best birthday he'd ever had.

* * *

**_3rd of September, 1998 - London, England_ **

On the eve of their return, they received one last letter from 'X'.

_Hopefuls,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. We know that your 'vacation' is nearing its end, and we would like to extend our warmest invitation to the Ministry of Magic some time soon, at your convenience. We would ask that you six, and only you, seek us out as a group at some point in the coming week._

_In order to gain entrance, you will need to tell the passphrase to the outside elevator guard, which is "Aliquando logicae, semper magicae"_

_Awaiting your arrival,_

_X_

Reading the letter one last time, Harry folded it into his pocket. The message was decidedly positive, and all six of them felt giddy.

That giddiness was quickly forgotten once they touched the international portkey, which first lurched like they'd been collectively hit by a train, and then pulled them along so hard their shoulders felt like they'd dislocate at any moment.

When the ungodly spinning finally stopped, they exploded from the magical vortex generated by arriving portkeys into the padded room specifically for that purpose, breaking their fall on the walls and ceiling (in Neville's case), while the portkey burned into ash in the middle of the room.

"Ugh." was all Harry could groan while he tried to push away his dizziness, glad they'd all applied sticking charms to their clothing and luggage before the travel - something which the travel brochure explicitly advised. The first time they hadn't done that and ended up several shoes, socks and one backpack lighter. Likely those were still somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

"Why did that feel worse than last time?" he asked once they'd been ushered out of the room and plonked down in a room seemingly built to house recent arrivals. The others just tried to get their stomachs under control.

* * *

**_5th of September, 1998 - London, England_ **

After two days, which they spent catching up with those friends that had stayed at home, they unanimously agreed to follow the letter's instructions and take 'X' up on their offer.

All six of them flooed, and arrived within minutes of eachother - Harry from the newly reclaimed Grimmauld Place, which he'd decided to make his new home. It was still somewhat gloomy, but much of the oppressive atmosphere had dissipated over the last two years.

On the third time of Mrs. Black's portrait uncovering itself, Harry had applied a silencing charm to his ears, sat down with a needle and thread and sewn the curtains shut by hand, unwilling and conveniently unable to hear Walburga's tirade. Afterwards, the curtain had occasionally twitched and made muffled noises, but never opened on its own accord like before.

Harry very much enjoyed the silence while he worked to purge the house of any remaining cursed objects, having enlisted Bill's help to do so. The curse-breaker had elected to stay home with his wife and newborn daughter, and thus had a lot of time on his hands. Harry got the feeling the older man's fingers were itching for work with how eagerly he'd agreed to break unknown and very likely extremely potent curses in a dank townhouse for a few hours every day.

When Harry flooed out that day, using the newly connected Floo Entrance in the living room fireplace, he did so as Bill had described while they'd unwoven a cursed carpet the day before.

"The trick with Flooing is relatively easy, Harry. It's a bit like apparition - you can apparate, right?" At Harry's nod, the curse-breaker continued, "It's similar to apparition in that it requires somewhat the same mindstate. The network does most of the work for you, which is why even Muggles can floo, but you still need to be deliberate - you can step in and wait for your destination, at which point the network will just spit you out into whatever place you're flooing to, and that usually works - but if you want to have a smooth travel, you need to keep walking, even while inside the network." Bill waved his hand for emphasis - and even though he didn't really understand that aspect, Harry did get what Bill was trying to say.

Just keep walking.

So when Harry threw the green dust into the flames and said flames turned green, he spoke, clearly this time, "The Ministry of Magic" - and strode into the fireplace.

Overcoming the feeling of vertigo that had stopped him the first time he'd flooed, he closed his eyes and kept walking, the feeling of coal and ash beneath his boots the only safety he could feel, striding through the vortex of howling wind that was at once real and not, forceful and nonexistent, tearing at his clothing and leaving it unmoving, until the whirling stopped, his shoes hit solid ground and he felt reality caress his face once more.

He opened his eyes, turned around, and saw the green flames die down behind him.

"Wooo! Our little Harry learned how to floo! And it only took him seven years. I'm so proud, I'll shed a tear." there was wild clapping from behind him, and he turned to a wryly grinning Ron and Hermione, who had arms linked together. Harry went over to hug them both, as well as Ginny, who was leaning against one of the other fireplaces. They'd recently made their "pause" permanent, and both were more or less happy with that decision.

Together, the four friends waited for Neville and Luna - Harry leading an easy conversation about one of Bill's "Egypt Stories", as Ron called them.

Neville eventually appeared in the same fireplace Harry had, haughtily stepping out of the flames before losing the high-chinned posture and joining his friends, and finally Luna simply burned into existence, standing in the middle of the fireplace one to the left of the one they'd arrived at. Not moving an inch as the flames died down around her, she skipped over once they were gone.

"Luna, how'd you do that? I thought movement was necessary?" asked a perplexed Hermione while they were walking over to the elevators.

"I said please," was Luna's simple answer.

* * *

"Where do you want to go, and do you have the necessary credentials?" asked the elevator guard in a bored voice, not bothering to look up from his copy of the Daily Prophet. Harry noticed that his own face featured prominently on the front page, but he couldn't make out the headline.

"Aliquando logicae, semper magicae," he answered instead. As soon as the words left Harry's mouth, the guard gazed over the paper, eyes sweeping over their group, as though ticking off a mental checklist. Unlike some of the other wizards and witches in the atrium, he gave no indication of recognizing any of them. Once he'd looked them over, he stepped aside and said in a gravelly voice, "The elevator button for the Department of Mysteries is located below all the others." When Harry looked inside, he could see another button shimmer into existence below the others, and knew at once that they'd just been inducted into a fidelius charm.

The group of six stepped into the elevator, and were quickly joined by several Ministry employees, among them Arthur Weasley.

"Hey, Dad." said Ron, causing his father to look up from the muggle magazine he'd been engrossed in. The man blinked once, then greeted them all, hugging his son and daughter - much to their embarrassment - and gave an exaggerated wink when they responded "It's a secret" to his question of their business in the Ministry before exiting on level three and calling after some other ministry employee.

The encounter left them with more questions than answers.

After several minutes of downward travel, the lift finally crawled to a halt, gave a slight _ding_ , and the doors slid open on their own.

They were greeted with a familiar entry hall, which was completely empty, save several doors and a corridor. It was creepy, almost completely empty, and they unconsciously formed up a defensive formation, wands dropping from holsters. Just as Harry was preparing to cast a light spell, there was a voice directly behind them.

"Ah, it's the hopefuls! Let me get a good look at you."

They whirled around, spells on lips and wands in the air, only to see five figures, all cloaked in grey robes that cast a deep shadow over the faces contained within their hoods. The shadow must've been magical, as the only thing discernible was a slight reflection from the eyes, as well as, strangely enough, their noses. The one who'd spoken was identical to all the others, but obviously took a leadership role. Completely disregarding the wands aimed in their direction, the figure stepped before Harry and sized him up.

"Harry Potter. When I received a letter with your signature on it, I almost discarded it. But it really is you." The figure sized him up, and nodded.

Continuing down the line, he scrutinized Hermione, "Hermione Granger - we expected you in our ranks sooner or later." they gave another nod, and moved on to Neville, who'd since lowered his wand.

"Neville Longbottom. Your Uncle works with us, did you know? He's told us a lot about you." One of the other robed figures gave a thumbs up, but had their hand slapped down by the one standing beside them.

"Luna Lovegood... I'm very, very sorry." The figure laid a hand on Luna's shoulder, and tears glistened in her eyes. She sniffed, and they were gone again.

"Ron and Ginny Weasley. I will say I did not expect you. However, if I didn't think you had potential, you wouldn't be here." The two of them looked slightly vindicated.

Harry stepped forward.

"I believe that you have us at a disadvantage, Mr..."

The figure laughed quietly, and pulled down their hood.

Harry stared into the man's face, unbelieving. When he found his voice again, he spoke barely above a whisper - but his voice still carried into the room.

"That's impossible. You're dead."


	3. Welcome

"Dead?" Said Nicholas Flamel, a very familiar twinkle in his eye. The group of six simply looked at him in disbelief, "Did you really think that a man such as myself would be willing to simply _give up on life?_ I did not go through the, to be quite frank, painful process of creating a Philosopher's Stone to give up my eternity a mere half millennium later." said the immortal, a grin playing around his mouth.

"But - the Stone, and Hogwarts! The Headmaster told me... he lied, didn't he. To protect you." Harry sighed.

"Lied? Not as such. Come, let us get out of this dank chamber, I do believe the dramatic effect has worn off by now. Everyone, you can lose the hoods."

At his command, the other Unspeakables also lowered their hoods, revealing quite ordinary-looking men and women. Harry recognized Algie from one of Neville's photos, and the man winked at his nephew.

The entire group was swept through one of the doors in the entrance chamber, led through several corridors and finally entered a cozy hall, which had a firepit burning in the center, as well as small lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The six friends were maneuvered into chairs, the four Unspeakables quickly joining them, and Flamel himself vanished through a rotating door into a kitchen area. When he returned, he was orbited by a kettle and several mugs, all of which quickly sook out one of them and pressed themselves into their hands.

"There," said Flamel, sitting down in the last of the chairs, which were arranged in a loose circle. "Now we've got Tea. Nothing better to reveal world-changing truths and take momentous oaths to than over a cuppa, eh? Come on, loosen up a little. You made the cut! You're part of us, now. If you want to, that is."

With that, Harry let go of the slight tension. The immortal almost had a calming aura, making them all feel at peace, even where they were. Still, he had to know.

"Mister Flamel. Did Professor Dumbledore lie to me? You said 'not as such', but that tells me nothing."

Flamel sighed. "He didn't lie - he told you what he believed to be the truth. I hid my continued life even from him, even though he was my friend. I told him I had had enough, that my wife and I were willing to give up our immortality and were ready for death. However, we were not truly. The fact the last thing I said to one of my dearest friends was a blatant lie still hurts. It may be that he suspected something, but Albus was never one to do or say anything without concrete proof."

Seeing Flamel's forlorn expression, Harry felt bad for asking. Then, the man straightened up, and his expression brightened once more.

"There. Alright. I'll be the first to welcome you, to congratulate you, and to caution you - welcome to the ranks of the Unspeakables, congratulations for making it this far... and keep in mind - you can always decline. Nobody will force you to do anything but keep what you see down here a secret. Some things the world is not ready to know."

"I'll introduce my colleagues. This is Algernon Longbottom, Head of the Cognitoarcanem Department-” “It's basically mind-magic, but weirder" "-thank you Algie, that’s actually more succinct than what I was about to say. He oversees several sub-departments - the Love chamber, and yes we know every joke, the Brain room, the Mental Metaphysics Department and he leads, jointly with Amara Silvanni, who's sitting next to him-" the petite woman gave a small wave "-the Death Chamber. Every Chamber, Room or Department has several Unspeakables assigned to it. Amara is also responsible for the Soul Chamber, the Life Chamber, the Hall of Prophecy and the Magibiology Department."

Flamel shifted his attention to the tall man sitting next to him.

“The bearded fellow to my right is Frederik Hum, he heads the Reality Department - it encompasses Time, Space, Dimensionality and Arcane Physics. Essentially everything that deals with the observable.”

Leaning forward, Flamel gestured towards the second woman, who nodded at them.

“And finally, the lady next to him is Susy Benedici. She’s the department head of Metamagics, which essentially deals with the mechanics of magic itself. It encompasses Spell Creation, Spell Manipulation, Non-Human Magic and Potion Design.”

Harry held up a hand, "Hang on, how many of you are there?"

"Department heads? Five, me included, but I don’t lead any departments - I lead this Chapter, and deal with the politics. Unspeakables? That number fluctuates. I can safely say that the number of unique persons in employ of this Chapter is currently thirty. Non-unique... well, that's where the fluctuations come from. At any time, there are several temporally-displaced instances around, and one or two of our agents were... let's just say 'replicated' through various means. One thing you will learn very fast is that we play loose and fast with logic down here - hence the passphrase: 'Sometimes Logical, Always Magical'."

It was Hermione who posed the next question, "Will we also be assigned, or can we essentially choose what we wish to research or do?"

"That touches on your training, actually. Once you've all been through basic training, taken your Oath and been issued the standard fare, you'll be inducted into the necessary secrets needed to function as an Unspeakable, and 'shown the ropes', so to say. Once their training is done, initiates usually have a pretty good grasp on what'll be the right area for them. However, this isn't a one-and-done deal - you can choose to be reassigned to another project, for instance."

"But what if we still don't know at that point?" asked Hermione, looking worried.

"Young lady, I have been Head Unspeakable for close to four centuries now. I've never met an initiate who didn't know their spot at the end of their training."

* * *

**_7th of September, 1998 - A small Unplottable Island, The North Sea_ **

Harry fell into his cot, muscles aching from overuse after his first day of 'basic training'. If he didn't know any better, he'd have thought Flamel wanted to murder them through overexertion.

When their portkey had arrived at the training site, a small complex built and maintained on an island by the Department of Mysteries, they'd been assigned rooms, given a schedule and shown around the buildings. Then, their training had begun.

It was regimented in three phases - the first would be Physical, the second Mental and the last Magical. Once all three had been completed, they would count as fully-fledged Unspeakables. Each phase would take one month to complete, and they had begun their Physical that day. After sizing up the six young adults, the stone-faced wizard in charge of their Physical had told them they were the weakest wizards and witches he'd ever seen, that he would have 'words' with Flamel about selecting such pathetic candidates and to do push-ups until they couldn't anymore.

Harry was surprised to find that he collapsed after fifty - back when he'd been training with the Quidditch team, Wood would regularly have them do sets of seventy or even eighty at a time, loudly counting in gaelic while doing his own with one hand. He supposed the month-long vacation had very likely caused his muscles to decay from disuse.

Unlike Ron, who eked him out by half a dozen before collapsing, Harry was too busy being horrified about losing his touch to curse the instructor.

It hadn't saved him from the second set of thirty; the irate man had assigned the entire group as punishment for Ron's muttered comment about blood pressure.

After the "nice and easy warm-up", the instructor had led them on an hour-long jog around the entire island, commenting loudly on the beautiful autumn air, the waves, and spinning strangely violent poetry about the seagulls squawking overhead.

At the end of the day, when all six of them were allowed to retire, Harry had simply fallen into his cot and dozed off near-instantly.

* * *

**_7th of October, 1998 - A small Unplottable Island, The North Sea_ **

After a month of pain, burning muscles and the establishment of both an exercise and a diet routine for the six of them, the physical part of their training finally ended.

All of them now looked markedly different. Harry himself felt energised, strong and confident - his figure had finally filled out, and the lanky teen was gone for good. In his place now stood a "strapping young gentleman" (according to Luna). The others had experienced much the same, especially Ron, who it seemed had grown even taller. Harry was no dwarf himself, of course - not anymore.

On the last day, Flamel visited the island, observed them jogging across the courtyard, doing various exercises and one of the obstacle courses, and then congratulated them all for a great work. He had then produced a glowing red stone, much to the shock of everyone, and cast a broad arc of red sparks through it that showered down onto the group.

"Just a basic piece of Alchemy, Kids. I certainly wouldn't want my muscles to decay because I'm not exercising seventeen hours a day."

He went on to explain that the piece of magic he'd performed would essentially 'fix' their muscle mass, and that their current bodies could now be maintained with a lot less exercise. Harry welcomed this.

After this, the second phase of their training could begin, this one focused on their minds.

With a new instructor, the old one having told them they were "not as pathetic as before, Merlin willing" and vanishing to Britain once again, they had begun 're-learning learning', as the woman had put it.

Predictably, Hermione was consistently the best of them in this aspect, but even she experienced several rude awakenings when the instructor criticised her way of researching, her notation, and several other aspects. In essence, the next month was spent learning how to learn and learning how to research.

To their surprise, the first days of the second phase were even more difficult than those of the first.

As before, Flamel came to appraise their progress about halfway through the second phase, offered advice and encouragement, and even assigned a small project to their group towards the end of the second phase. They were to research the Priori Incantatem effect, and for that purpose, Flamel had somehow acquired Voldemort's Yew wand.

How it had survived Voldemort's impromptu funeral pyre he did not say.

Using their newly acquired skills, the group first dove into the small (but very broad) library of the training complex, collected all material on the Priori Incantatem Effect and then began testing it within one of the duelling chambers, hoping to study the actual effect in a measurable way. Harry elected to use his own wand, having fixed it using the Elder one some months ago, and Luna proved to be the best match for the Yew one. They threw a Disarming charm at each other, eventually managing to hit each other's spells, and the wands connected with a golden thread.

Curiously, the connection felt vastly different, and from there came their first original piece of data - the wielders of the wands mattered, perhaps more so than the wands themselves. Experimenting further, they discovered that the emotional state of both wielders mattered immensely. While repeating the experiment after a small spat over something ultimately irrelevant, they discovered that the two emotions that affected the connections the strongest were anger and happiness, as well as Love (tested through having Ron and Hermione wield the two wands), and presumably also Hatred (though none of them hated any of the others, so they could not test that theory).

When the second phase ended, the Priori Incantatem effect was much more thoroughly explored than before, and Flamel praised them on their academic excellence.

* * *

**_7th of November, 1998 - A small Unplottable Island, The North Sea_ **

The final phase of their basic training was the most difficult, though the instructor was someone more familiar - Perenelle Flamel, leader of the French Chapter of the Department of Mysteries, and the wife of Nicholas Flamel.

Perenelle, or Penny, as she asked to be called, led this phase of their training in a radically different way than the other instructors had led theirs.

At first, she led guided meditation sessions. Not for any true magical purpose, but simply to 'create a solid foundation', as she'd put it when Luna commented that the woman did not have many water snakes.

The practice of meditation seemed to come most easily to Ron, Luna and Neville, with Harry himself and Hermione struggling the most. The witch had confessed that she could not calm her thoughts no matter how hard she tried, and Harry simply did not seem to fall into the same trance as the others did. He could sit, cross-legged with scented candles and a soft music emanating from Penny's wand, and sit, and sit, and sit, and nothing would happen.

He did not fidget like Hermione, but he did grow bored over time.

After several days of nothing, even when the others started to show a more calm and measured demeanor, Perenelle found Harry outside at night, looking over the ocean from a small perch to the east of the island. Having sensed her nearing, he said "I don't know why, but I can't do it. I just can't. Nothing seems to happen!"

Perenelle did not respond, but she did sit down next to him. Together, they looked over the calm ocean, the full moon shining onto their faces. Finally, she spoke.

"Mister Potter - Harry. Do you know who you remind me of?"

"No, who?"

"My husband. Nick was a bit like you, many, many years ago," when Harry tried to speak up, she held up a hand, shushing him, "Let me finish, please. When I met Nick, it was his empathy that drew me in, that made me fall in love with him. He was always worrying, always pained by the state of the world, and filled with so much determination to make things better for everyone that he had no concern left for himself. The first time I saw him, he was holding off several wizards, by himself, while a muggle family escaped. He fought without regard for himself, and was gravely wounded - but the family did escape. He still keeps up with their descendants to this day. Nick will tell you that I am his greatest strength, that I am who made him who he is today, but he's wrong - all I did was give him an anchor, and it made him realize that his own life was also worth something. He realized that he would harm me by continuing to be dismissive about his own concerns, his own health and sanity. Do you understand?"

And Harry did.

* * *

The next time they were drummed together for a meditation session, Harry attempted an introspective instead of simply staring at the darkness of his own eyelids.

Using the nigh-muscle memory they'd been given during phase two, he began with a hypothesis - 'I am sane and well-adjusted.'

And then, he began exploring his memories and biases with the intent of proving or disproving that hypothesis.

He remembered his own childhood - and instead of downplaying it to himself like he'd done to his friends before, he looked at it with a critical eye. His childhood was not a normal one, that much was certain - but scrutinizing it from a semi-objective perspective, he was honest to himself for the first time. His childhood had _sucked balls_.

He hadn't been beaten, sure, but he had still been abused, he realized with a start. He _had_ been abused. Starved. Neglected.

Filing that realisation away, he remembered his years at Hogwarts with a critical eye. Though it hurt to be honest about the first true home he'd known, he found that even at Hogwarts, he'd been neglected. Not by his friends, who stood out as beacons of light even with the critical perspective, but by those adults who should have been there for all of them.

In first year, he had learned not to rely upon McGonagall, a fact that he was startled to realize, he had taken to heart. He'd never sought out her help again.

In second year, he had learned that his teachers could not be trusted - Lockhart had fooled them all, and then attacked Harry and Ron.

In third year, he had learned that the government could not be trusted either.

In fourth year, he had learned that he was on his own, always, and that even friendships could be affected by outside influences.

And on it went, all the way to his second death at the hands of Voldemort.

A death, he now realized, had been decided for him in advance.

And even though this realisation was painful, more painful than most things he knew, he was also aware that it had truly been the only way.

His scar had contained a Horcrux, and without his death, Voldemort would have risen again, and again, and again.

When Harry felt a hand shake his shoulder and wetness on his face, he realized that he'd just meditated for the first time.

* * *

Having cracked the secret, so to speak, Harry began meditating in earnest. He started working through emotional baggage, set goals for himself and began critically analysing his own behavior.

In doing so, he realized that he had indeed been behaving like Perenelle had explained - he'd been ready to self-sacrifice, placed little worth into his own well-being and the Dursleys' gentle care seemed to still follow him around. It was ingrained so deeply that when he consciously chose not to help the elf in the kitchen one evening, he actually felt guilty - despite Sashy's repeated reassurances that she could handle it on her own.

Yet still, slowly but surely, he healed. And he began opening up to his friends about these problems.

Luna, dear Luna, she simply hugged him tightly, Hermione and Ron told him they'd known for a long time, and Ginny as well as Neville were supportive in their own quiet way.

It was halfway through phase three that he finally realized he'd achieved the same confident calmness as the others had.

When Perenelle met them again on the 22nd, she told them that guided meditation was now over.

"I'm reasonably sure that you will all be able to meditate on your own for now. Don't be afraid to experiment with location or environment either - I meditate best with my scented candles and my music, but your ideal space may be something different. All I recommend is that you keep doing it, preferably every day. It'll only help you in the long run."

From that point on, they began "truly" training their magical ability.

While Hogwarts taught magical theory as a matter of course, they were not terribly well versed in how to actually train oneself in magic. There was a layer of abstraction that made it difficult to translate academia into the real world - which was where Penny came in.

She taught them that magic, at its core, functioned broadly like a muscle, and that using it would make it stronger, more focused, and easier. And then, the arguably hardest portion of their training began.

Perenelle made them cast spells to exhaustion and beyond. Harry could not count how many times he had levitated the same stone, how many times he had lit and extinguished his wand or how many slabs of rock he had conjured, but by the end of the first day, his body felt like it was made from that same granite. He was exhausted beyond exhaustion, his nerves burned and his eyes fluttered close on their own accord.

And then, they did the same thing on the next day. And the day after. And on and on it went. Spells passed from concentration into something like muscle memory, magic became stronger and more potent by the day - where before, Harry could only conjure an adequate light with his Lumos, by the end of the first week of this, the strength of his illumination charm made spots dance across his vision. The others fared similarly - the very first thing Perenelle had done was dispel the myth of inborn magical strength.

"There is absolutely no difference between you-" she pointed at each of them in turn "-and Merlin himself. He was magical, you are magical. Every wizard or witch that has ever lived was magical. There are no grades of magical power, no convenient scale it can be compared against. There are no measurable 'magical cores' within our bodies! We _are_ magic itself! Our bodies, our minds, our very souls are infused with magic, built from magic and inexorably linked to magic. Every act of living you perform is at the same time an act of magic! Now, are there natural talents? Of course. Like with everything else, there are talented people. But also like with everything else, training always trumps talent. So train, and you may even surpass Merlin himself."

And train they did. For weeks, they did nothing but cast spells, day in and out, cast, concentrated and focused spells until their eyes glowed and their hair became frizzy. The first time Neville's eyes shed a slight yellow glow into the dim training chamber, he freaked out, canceled his spell and the glow faded.

Each of them, in turn, experienced the same effects - passive signs of the immense magic channeled through their bodies.

By the last week of phase three, each of them had performed acts of magic they would not have thought possible before - Harry had stood on his perch on the cliff and drawn the tide, Ron had cracked the foundation of the training complex, Hermione had levitated herself above the clouds in a rippling tornado, Luna had apparated through the siege-level wards of the facility with an ear-shattering Bang, Neville had conjured a small house with a single, silent spell, and Ginny had torn a swath through the entire island before they'd gotten her summoned wildfire under control. These effects were devastatingly powerful - but they still lacked control. And control was what made true power. Any adult wizard who put in a few weeks of training could cast an awe-inspiring lightning storm over a battlefield, but only the wizard that can cause the lightning to avoid allied soldiers, and indeed himself, would be considered great.

The last week was spent attempting to learn the basics of wandless magic, under Perenelle's tutelage. She flexed the power whenever the opportunity presented itself, levitating food, lighting candles, opening doors and repairing damage without ever touching her wand.

Despite trying, none of them managed to perform wandless magic on command. There were several promising attempts, but any efforts to control their magic without a focus fell flat - as wandless magic was vastly different from wanded magic.

* * *

**_7th of December, 1998 - A small Unplottable Island, The North Sea_ **

When Nicholas Flamel visited the new Initiates for the last day of their basic training, he was proud of the change they had undergone. Gone were the directionless teenaged veterans, and in their place stood young men and women with goals and confidence in life. All six of them stood straighter, had clearer eyes and a better grip on their magic than before.

And each of them had done much thinking as to what they wished to do.

One by one, they told him of their wishes, and he congratulated them.

Neville was the first - so like his uncle back in the day, full of energy but also slightly hesitant about expressing himself. He requested a place with the magical seed vault in Svalbard, and the associated magibiological laboratory. The leader of that chapter had actually asked Nick to consider assigning the young man to their team, so he was glad to grant the request.

Ron Weasley - a young man he had never thought would join the Unspeakables, was next. Nick knew of the boy's - no, the man's encounter with the Brains, but was still surprised to hear that he wanted to work in that area, under Algie. His request was also granted, with the assurance that Weasley could switch to another department at any time.

Ginny Weasley was a surprise. She specifically asked to be assigned to the Time chamber in the Reality Department, having shown an extraordinary interest for the temporal magics. Nick's wife had told him of the young witch's unique way of thinking, and even now, some of her theories went in directions the immortal would never have considered himself.

Luna Lovegood, daughter of dear Pandora, asked for a posting under Amara. She'd shown an unparalleled aptitude with beings of any form, and he thought she would fit right in with those Unspeakables that made up her team. Her unique way of seeing things and interacting with anyone and anything was awe-inspiring, if one knew what to look for.

Hermione Granger - the only one he'd actually thought likely to join their ranks - had developed a fervor for spell development, and thrown herself bodily into the practice. Perenelle sometimes called the razor-sharp focus and speed with which she made connections "frightening", but Nick himself thought her request for the Metamagics department it would be a perfect posting.

And finally, the prodigal son. Harry J. Potter. A child of prophecy, dead twice-over, wielder of the most powerful wand in existence, a walking impossibility. To say Nick was unsurprised when the young man looked him in the eye and asked for a posting with Amara, in the team researching the Veil, would be an understatement.

* * *

When they returned to Britain, specifically the Ministry of Magic, few recognized them for who they were. Fewer still approached them. On the evening of the Seventh, they filed into the elevator, Luna pressed the secret button and they rode downwards, towards their new colleagues. That night, they would take their Oath of secrecy, and officially become Unspeakables.

"The Oath is relatively simple," Flamel had said, "It has three parts: the Promise, the Proof and the Binding. The Promise is what the Oath applies to, and how it works. In your case, it will be the knowledge of your job, and that you must keep it secret. The Proof, then, is insurance - should you become an Oathbreaker, the Proof will be extracted from you. A Proof can be anything that is not inexorably a part of your soul - so you cannot use your soul itself, your life, your mind or your magic as proof. Other things work, such as your name, your voice, etc. It simply needs to be something of great value. The binding, then, is the actual magic of the oath. A third person will create the binding, seal the oath and make it ironclad in the eyes of magic itself. Think about what you will use for Proof."

When they arrived in the dim halls of the DoM, they were met by Algie and Amara, who led them through one of the corridors, chatting amicably.

"Don't worry, everyone's scared of the Oath. It's terribly ritualistic, but well, it's a ritual for a reason, you know?" shrugged Amara.

When they arrived at their destination, they were greeted by a cozy office. There was a large, semi-circular desk with a shimmering crystalline prism sitting on a metal stand. All around the rounded rooms of the office were bookshelves, and there were scrolls of parchment and loose papers crammed into every free spot along the walls. Behind the desk stood Nicholas Flamel himself, wearing the grey robe, his face still unobscured.

"Ah, you're here. Have you thought about your Proofs?"

Harry answered in affirmative, and so did the others, so Flamel clapped his hands together. At the noise, the light dimmed and several candles ignited.

"Let us begin, then." he said, and lifted up his hood. Amara and Algie, who stood beside him, did the same.

The central figure began to intone, speaking in a strangely poetic manner.

_"You have toiled, trained, and become ready for this moment. Do you, Initiates, wish to proceed, and become Unspeakable?"_

_"Yes."_ they answered as one, in accordance to the Ritual script they'd been given beforehand. Flamel pointed at Harry.

_"Good. Step forward, Initiate, place your hand upon the Prism of Parcelsius."_

Harry stepped forward, and set his hand down onto the crystal, which began glowing from within. Algie, Amara and Flamel set their wands upon his hand.

_"Do you, Harry James Potter, swear to keep secret all you learn here, to keep hidden that which the world is not ready to know, to seek truths that others cannot, and to know so that the innocent may remain unburdened?"_

_"I do."_

A band of fire snapped out of Amara's wand, and wrapped around his hand as well as the crystal.

_"Upon what do you swear these things, Harry James Potter?"_

_"I swear these things upon my voice, for an Oathbreaker has already said too much."_

A second band shot from Algie's wand, crossing the first and wrapping around his hand.

_"By my right as Head Unspeakable, I find these terms to be acceptable."_

A third band of fire shot from Flamel's wand, and all three sunk into Harry's hand, leaving no sign of their presence behind.

When Harry lifted his hand from the crystal however, he could feel the heavy tingling of powerful magic within it. Shaking it out, he almost missed the spell shot at him by Flamel's wand.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Misdirection jinx, of course. Try telling your friends here where you work." The man's voice held no trace of the heady ritual tone, having returned to its natural jovialness.

Harry lifted an eyebrow, turned towards Luna, and said, "I've recently taken up stockbroking."

His hand flew to his mouth, and Luna giggled - he had intended to say "I'm an Unspeakable", but his mouth had said something different! Facing Ron, he tried again - "Hey, Ron. I went to the Ministry today - to start my job as cleaning staff."

Ron guffawed.

Turning back to Flamel, who had let down his hood once more, Harry said "Explain."

"It's not exactly part of the official process, but I had the idea of applying this jinx to all unspeakables a few hundred years ago. It'll mainly prevent you from accidentally breaking the oath by making it essentially impossible to do so. It's my own creation - a jinx that will attach itself to the oath's magic and in essence enforce it. We lost a few good agents to accidental reveals before we started doing this. The spell's only weakness is that it's not very consistent - for example, if you tried telling Ms. Lovegood again, you would say something different."

"Ah, so it's for my own protection?"

"More or less. It will also protect others from the things you learn while working for us. Nevermind that, though - Welcome, Mister Potter, to the Unspeakables."


	4. Lock and Key

**_13th of December, 1998 - London, England_ **

"And here it is. The Veil." said his guide, gesturing grandly at the room.

Harry hadn't seen, or even thought about, the Veil in several years. But when the opportunity presented itself, he felt drawn to it. Currently, he was standing - secured by a harness attached to the wall, like all Unspeakables working in the room - overlooking the slightly sunken platform which it stood upon.

Harry could feel its effect on his mind, the entrancing whispers that seemed to draw one ever closer, and knew at once why they were all wearing harnesses.

"Nobody actually knows how old it is. The earliest records we have indicate that it stood here since before there was an empire in Rome. The earliest mention is in a proto-latin text that states 'and in that cave lay a circle of stones, surrounding an archway most curious - it wavers despite there being no winds, and as I got closer, I began hearing whispers'." the guide explained, and they began rounding the room.

"The entire Department is actually built around this chamber, and the Ministry around the department, but few know this. To the public, it's known as the Veil of Death - but that's just superstition. All we know is that anything which falls in never comes out, including spells, and that it creates whispering within the minds of people that are nearby. The Death part was never substantiated, but you know how rumors grow out of control." They'd now rounded the chamber, and Harry had observed that the Veil's... veil looked identical from both sides. A silent, otherworldly surface, only rippling in an occasional unseen wind.

"The markings on the frame are especially strange. They resemble no known language we know of - no human ones, neither the Goblin nor early elven languages." Harry could see that there were markings engraved into the black frame, and had to concur. The symbols looked unlike any he'd ever come across.

"It also reacts... strangely to any spells applied to it." finished his guide. Harry raised an eyebrow, "Strangely?"

"Try to change the color of one of the segments. We don't know how to explain the effect, really."

Harry drew his wand, thought for a moment and then tapped his wand onto the frame. A splotch of blue bled out from the spot his wand had touched, and he watched the color spread across the Veil's frame, much more slowly than it should have. After a moment, the color crawled to a halt, and the Veil made a strange, groaning noise.

The large triangle adorning the frame just above Harry's wand flickered with a white glow, before extinguishing again.

There was no sign of Harry's spell ever having been there.

"It does that every time we've tried doing anything magical to it. It seems to just suck away any magic applied to it, make that noise and flicker for a moment, then it returns to normal." said his guide, gently pulling Harry away from the surface of the veil - and the whispering that had begun pervading his mind.

"Did you try giving it what it wants?"

"Yes, actually - it simply flickered for a bit longer, while exhausting several Unspeakables. It's a magical magnet, too - spells curve slightly towards it, more if they are powerful. Watch." His guide drew her wand, aimed it slightly left of the Veil's frame and spoke the disarming charm.

 _"Expelliarmus."_ she said, and the jet flew from her wand - only to curve towards the arch, enter its surface and disappear.

"We also send a stone through every Christmas, it's somewhat of a tradition. You want to do the honors this year?"

And their tour continued on.

* * *

**_4th of August, 2001 - London, England_ **

The six new recruits had quickly settled into their chosen roles, and as so often happened, drifted apart somewhat. They were still friends, but their disparate duties caused them to spend more and more time apart from eachother - coupled with the fact that they threw themselves bodily into their work.

Luna had taken to her post like a fish to water - proving within nine months, a new record, that a previously unknown type of being existed. This new classification had been dubbed "fauna fidem", or simply Fey, based on their defining characteristic - the ability to perceive beings of this type required faith in their existence. Luna being Luna, she'd immediately shot down any suggestion of hunting these beings and reverse-engineering their magic. Instead, she'd begun to form the beginnings of a diplomacy, which was already promising great returns.

Similarly, Hermione had first struggled with, then thrown down the official DoM Spellmatrix - a type of vast arithmantic formula used to 'predict' the wand motion and incantations of new spells based on their intended effect - and set to completely rewriting it from the ground up. Late at night, when only the long-running experiments and enchanted brooms were around to hear her, her voice could still be heard muttering about "object oriented formula creation" and "nested fractal constructions". It had eventually gotten so bad that her friends staged an intervention and began pulling her out of the lab, the walls of which (in addition to a growing segment of the corridor outside) were completely covered in arcane math, at reasonable hours.

Neville they saw less of, but his work had had the most widespread effect on the world. Within two years of his joining the Svalbard chapter, Ashleaf, a plant previously thought to be extinct, had begun springing up all across the world. Named for the soft ash that drifted off its gently glowing petals at all times, Ashleaf could be used to create an extremely potent burn salve, and had been over-harvested during Grindelwald's war. Neville eventually confirmed that it had been their work - Ashleaf seeds had been contained in the vault, but he'd figured out the exact conditions required for them to awaken from hibernation: An active volcano.

Ginny had been completely absorbed into her work, for good or bad. As a temporal researcher, she'd almost immediately begun wantonly time-travelling, as her colleagues did - and had begun being affected. She would sometimes react before something happened, if only unconsciously, and conversations would often feel stilted, until her conversation partner realized that it was almost as if she'd known the outcome beforehand. As these incidents began mounting, Ginny was eventually subjected to a test designed to reveal the Sight, if it existed, and had tested very slightly positive. Usually, Seers were barred from working in the Reality department at all, a guideline carried over from "the _very_ old texts", as Flamel had put it - but Ginny seemed fine, so she simply trained the budding Seer talent as well. Only, instead of manifesting as visions or prophecies, her gift seemed to attune itself to her ever more atemporal nature, resulting in slight extratemporal perceptions rather than the bursts of information most people with Seer blood attained.

Likewise, her brother had begun his work with the Cognitoarcanem department in a very strange fashion. On his first day, he'd delivered a stack of notebooks to Algernon, and told him it contained all he remembered from the attack of the brains. It was only when Algie told him that the Brains were usually very stingy, and very lethal, that Ron realized the magnitude of his experience. Analysis of the scars on his arms revealed them to be an attempt at possession, as the Brains were like to do, which had been halted in the moment of transference, causing only the Brains' knowledge to flow into his head, instead of their identities as well. The Brains were a very mysterious species, discovered at the very bottom of the Mariana Trench a century prior, and their knowledge was not exactly meant for human minds. Ron's work with the brains was strange, and stranger still was his slightly uncharacteristic expertise on water-related matters, but all in all he was fine. He'd even, much to his parents' shock, gotten his arms tattooed in the pattern of his scars, the eldritch runes and swirls now permanently glinting in the silvery light of the magical ink.

And lastly, Harry had become somewhat obsessed with the Veil. At first his friends were concerned that he had still not gotten over Sirius' death, but an intervention revealed nothing but genuine, honest-to-merlin curiosity about the biggest mystery in all of Britain. Every few months, he would petition Flamel with another crazy plan or idea, and Flamel would usually approve those that did not seem like they would result in the collapse of local reality or the end of the world, and Harry's team would try and ultimately fail. Their current angle was attempting to provide the Veil with the magic it so obviously craved, but they weren't having much luck.

All in all, they'd settled into their careers quite nicely.

* * *

**_27th of June, 2003 - London, England_ **

Hermione stood, perfectly still, eyes unfocused, hand outstretched, before a small podium. Her forehead held the sheen of sweat, and she'd discarded the Unspeakable robe a few hours ago.

On that podium lay an innocuous stone - a stone that was so unassuming, mundane and uninteresting that it drew attention through its mere blandity alone. It had been discovered a few weeks before, inside of the private collection of an "upstanding member of society", where it had been hooked up to a small slate, a piece of chalk and several monitoring spells.

After a few more minutes, Hermione finally let her arms down, wincing as her muscles were finally allowed to rest.

"Hey, Hermione. No luck?" asked the voice of her best friend, Harry - fellow Unspeakable, and also responsible for the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of the upstanding member of society. The large amounts of conclusive proof of involvement in a terrorist organisation that had appeared within the auror department's evidence chamber had nothing to do with either her or his actions the night prior, of course. Anyone who was interested would find that they'd enjoyed a nice outing with their closest friends that evening.

"No. It's just... maybe the rock really is just a rock."

"That's what I've been saying from the start. You know how magicals are. We're magicals ourselves."

"I guess you're right. You up for drinks later?"

"Sure, but I might be running late. I had another idea."

Hermione perked up at that - even though none of Harry's ideas had worked thus far on reviving the Veil, they had revealed several things that were unknown before, chief among these that the Veil truly was sleeping, or dormant, somehow. Harry held onto the theory that enough energy funneled into it at once might awaken it once again and... do something, but thus far none of their approaches had worked. She still remembered one particularly spectacular weekend where the Reality Department was cleared to tap into London's electrical grid, causing a blackout across the entire country as the Veil drew all available energy into itself and then fell back into its previous state of dormancy.

* * *

**_14th of September, 2005 - London, England_ **

"Harry... no, wait." said Ginny into the empty room, before shrugging and bending back over her workbench. She placed her engraving tool back onto the delicate golden frame, and proceeded to punch right through the entire structure as a knock on the door caused her to flinch.

In strode Harry, flicking on a light - she blinked into the glare, then flipped up her bulbous goggles, and smiled. "Harry! I almost greeted you a minute ago but then I realized you weren't here yet."

"Ginny, hey. Sorry about... eh, that." he said, gesturing at the small pool of molten gold that had once been a complex magical instrument. She shrugged.

"Shit happens. What do you need?"

"Well, I was wondering if I might take a look at your department's storage. I figure Frederik would be more inclined to you requesting for me than me doing it myself, considering what happened to his foe glass."

 _'What happened to his foe glass_ ' was the understatement to end all understatements. Frederik had possessed (use of the past tense quite intentional) an enchanted Foeglass - the charmwork altered by the man himself to fix many of the issues present in the old design. Its magic, and indeed that of his entire office, had been torn apart by an errant lash of energy as one of the Veil team's attempts to power the thing went lengthwise.

"Sure, I'll ask him. What would you need?" asked Ginny.

"Well, I recently went through the archives, and there was this report from the 60's..."

* * *

**_24th of May, 2007 - London, England_ **

An alarm was blaring through the echoey halls of the Department of Mysteries, magnifying itself and causing every Unspeakable that heard it to cringe at the overlapping noise.

More pressing, however, was the shaking.

More and more found themselves condensing into small groups, wands out and advancing towards the source of the quake - Flamel joining the growing congregation eventually - as they triangulated the center from several departments.

They eventually burst into the Death chamber, finding it in chaos. The entire room was quaking, causing several of the local Unspeakables to throw up broad shields at the ceiling, hoping to forestall the collapse that seemed inevitable. At the center of it all was Potter, hanging on to a railing and wildly flailing his wand as he tried and failed to control the vortex of energies that had condensed around the Veil.

A quick direction from Flamel later, and several Unspeakables were supporting those holding up the ceiling, while a smaller team proceeded into the storm of wild magic and began unweaving its patterns.

Immediately, Potter turned his head, and shouted at them to stop, to instead "do something productive", and Flamel entered a verbal battle requesting what the hell was going on, to which Potter responded that he had everything under control.

A tense staring contest later, Flamel began patching up cracks in the walls and floor, and occasionally helped hold up a section of the wall, constantly feeling the nexus of magical power roaring at his back.

However, slowly but surely, it began to... order itself, condense down into a more regimented form, and he could, as attuned as his senses were, almost physically feel the magic wrap itself into dense cords, pulsing with contained rage, as one by one they receded into the Earth, where they belonged. Only a single node remained, tethered to the tip of Potter's wand, which was trailing a tiny bit of smoke into the air.

"All clear" he shouted, looking disheveled but also holding a giant grin on his face. His hair was standing on end and his eyes were wide, both lit up by the brilliant star that glowed from the end of his wand.

"POTTER! This is _not_ what I meant with 'reasonable risk'!"

None of those present had ever heard Flamel sound genuinely angry, but as he stalked towards Potter, his towering figure struck fear into them all, even the disheveled wizard standing in their midst.

"There is a REASON we do not _wantonly_ draw on the Magic of the Earth, there is a reason why it exists _underground_ , and you have no idea how lucky you are to still stand before me to hear this!"

Those Unspeakables that knew what he was talking about paled immediately - the Magic of the Earth, sometimes stylized as Wild Magic or The Wyld, was the magic of the planet itself. Everything contained some fragment of magic, the basis of its existence, and the Earth contained a whole damn lot of it. Most who attempted to tap into this source of immense power simply exploded, or burned up from the inside, but occasionally, some survived, and what small fragment of the Wyld they had liberated from Gaia's hands could be used to truly cataclysmic effect.

The fact that Potter had not only attempted the draw but also survived it... well, some in the room had long been envious of his luck. It seemed to gyrate from one extreme to the other, randomly.

Flamel only picked up steam, however. Gesturing around the small bits of debris here and there, the cracks in the wall, ceiling and floor, he fumed. "And you did it here, of all places! What if you exploded? What if the energy jumped into anything within this department? Do you want to tear apart the universe? Can you even conceive of the effect raw Wild Magic would have upon the Sands of Time?"

Now was Harry's turn to pale, as he no doubt vividly pictured the ways that precise situation could have gone wrong. However, he quickly recovered.

"It worked, though! I did it! Look at it, isn't it beautiful?"

Flamel quickly realized that he wouldn't be getting through to Harry, not at that moment. The young man was, so to say, extremely high from the amount of magic he'd channeled, a symptom very common to those who'd done the same in the past. Recognizing that Harry's wand was very slowly losing its structural integrity, he resignedly nodded at Harry, who proceeded to march up to the Veil, and jam the glowing star directly into the arch's frame.

The noise it made was familiar, but this time the symbols did not just flicker and die again. The archway rumbled, giving its customary groan, and one by one, the large crystalline triangles began lighting up with a white glow. At the same time, the Veil's interior went from calm to wild - it fluttered, looking less like fabric and more like silvery water.

Harry slowly stepped backwards, wielding his smoldering wand in a white-knuckled grip, quickly joining the defensive formation that had formed up behind him.

The crystal triangles flickered one last time, then held their light steadily. Everyone waited with bated breath, unsure as to what was going to happen, when the Veil did something uncharacteristic. With an echoing sound like fabric tearing, the silvery surface dissipated into nothingness, leaving behind only the archway itself.

Said empty archway was still lit up, however, and _began to spin_ . Rotating rapidly, all the symbols on the Arch were beginning to light up in a random pattern, looming. When the last one had begun to glow, the archway lay silent, and without warning, a loud _FWOOOOSH_ sounded, accompanying the formation of a new Veil, which exploded outwards from the Arch. The shield charms most of them reflexively cast proved unnecessary - the wave immediately retreated back from whence it came, leaving behind the same translucent surface that had existed there before.

Just as Harry was about to lower his wand, a small pebble sailed out of the Veil, and tinged against his shield. Bending down, he picked it up - noting it felt warm to the touch, a sinking feeling appeared in his stomach as he read the carved inscription.

_Merry Christmas, Sirius, wherever you are._

_~Harry_


	5. .zip

Ten minutes later, a second stone shot from the Veil, but this time, Flamel was there to catch it with a spell. Harry and his team had begun analyzing the first as the second one whizzed past their ears, only to be caught at the wand tip of their boss.

 _"Revelio Tandem Tactu"_ he whispered at the pebble, which quickly began exuding a striking white smoke, coalescing into a humanoid shape on the floor before the Veil.

It took a very familiar shape - Amara, frozen in a pose of throwing, the stone clearly visible in the illusion. Around her were more indistinct figures, who were quickly determined to be the rest of the Veil team.

"Hey, I remember that," said Amara, looking at her own image, "That's Christmas two years ago. I've let my hair grow since then, look how short it is!"

Flamel quickly directed one of the nearby Unspeakables to set up a spell to catch anything else shooting from the veil, which proved a worthy endeavor when a third engraved stone was caught in the quickly woven magical net. He also ordered a few teams to travel to the surface and report to the Minister, as well as the Chief Warlock that they'd gotten the disturbance under control and to quell any possible panic. Lastly, those Unspeakables not on the Veil team were directed to check every inch of the surrounding halls for damage.

Finally, he began poking at the illusion, causing Amara's illusory form to replay the last moments of the stone touching her hand over and over.

Harry, joined by his fellows, was much more interested in the Veil, however. Several quick tests revealed that the "magnetic" effect had been inverted, and spells had begun curving _away_ from the frame instead, and that the psychic whispering emanating from it had quieted considerably. If anything, the voices themselves were... anticipatory, almost. They had stopped drawing those nearby towards the Veil, as well.

When the fourth pebble flew overhead, They'd formulated a plausible theory as to what was happening. Harry spoke up, "Alright, I think we know what's happening. The Veil is now... reversed, somehow, and the time between crossings seems to be massively condensed. We throw a stone with well wishes on it every year at christmas... so if it condenses a year of time into ten minutes, then the process will be thousands of times faster."

Flamel nodded. "That's the same conclusion as I came to. That also means we'll need records, logs, anything to tell us what to expect. Also, Potter... the last living being to cross the veil was your godfather."

Harry hadn't even thought about that. Sirius, he might see Sirius again! But then, he'd also matured, had already grieved the man. Harry was unsure if either of them could handle Sirius still living. However, he filed that thought away with practiced ease, and focused on the more concerning part.

"Wait... wasn't the Veil used to 'execute' dark lords until not that long ago?"

Flamel's eyes widened.

About an hour and a bit later, all of the Unspeakables had finished in their assigned tasks. The quake had luckily only rattled the lower levels of the ministry, and most of the damage was quickly repaired. Now, the entire department stood, wands out, staring at the shimmery surface of the Veil.

It was time.

It began rippling, an effect they'd observed, and a human shape flew backwards from the water, crashing onto the platform. Harry cautiously approached, and saw that the man - Sirius, it really was him - had fallen unconscious, likely because of the curse burning through his chest.

Calling over several of his fellows, they began dismantling the curse that had attached itself to the man's breastbone, Harry and one other breaking the magic while two of their colleagues levitated Sirius out of the chamber.

* * *

The man was in bad shape, Harry realized. His memory of Sirius was colored by grief for his supposed death, but with his more experienced eyes he could see the bags under his eyes, the emaciated limbs, and the raspiness in his voice that had never truly left him. They used a quick transfiguration to turn his hair blonde and his eyes blue, Harry threw his own robe over the man's body and he was flooed to St. Mungos, where a separate ward was maintained for any injuries among the Unspeakable staff. Sirius would be in good hands for the time being.

With determined steps, Harry returned to the Veil chamber. One of the Unspeakables was rapidly skipping through sheaves of ancient parchment, dictating something to another sitting next to her.

"nothing. nothing. 1843, Uhla the Merciless. nothing."

She set down the parchment and began digging through the pile next to her.

"Decade: 1970. nothing. nothing. nothing..."

And on she went, jumping wildly as they worked through the chaotic series of records. Still, they stayed in formation - based on an educated guess, the Veil was quickly approaching those years when it had actively been used for executions. Usually, executions of very powerful dark wizards.

When the second humanoid shape slumped from the Veil, screaming hoarsely about 'destroying them all', he was quickly stunned and bound. However, more followed him. Most were aggressive, and several had some talent at wandless magic - two appeared within moments of eachother and immediately began teaming up, one shielding the Unspeakables' attacks and the other slashing at his own arms to draw glyphs into the air in blood. After several close duels, they were all subdued - and in one case, blasted backwards into the Veil once more - only this time, Erik the Undying would not return.

Eventually, the wave ceased apruptly, and as did the pebbles, which had been a very convenient measure of the decades passing thus far. At some point during the mid 16th century, they were greeted with an animated statue in humanoid form, which quickly marched up to Flamel and began speaking in middle english.

Once they'd finished, Flamel explained with a bemused expression, "I actually remember enchanting this one. It was one of the first experiments I ever authorized. He was supposed to walk through and remember everything he could sense until I spoke to him again. Sue, Mary, quickly, move him into a free lab. I think he'll be able to tell us some very interesting things. For now, keep your wands up. This is where it gets spicy."

With that, they returned to their tense stakeout. Where before there had been relatively accurate usage logs (likely on account of Flamel attaining leadership and enforcing proper documentation), they were now essentially blind as to what might come out of the damned thing.

During the mid-15th century, they were greeted to a figure in very familiar robes stumbling out of the Veil, looking around with wild eyes. Once calmed down, their fellow Unspeakable opened up. He'd entered the Veil 600 years prior, in order to explore the other side. Only, there had been none.

"I cannot place it, not truly. I simply slowly, gradually, became aware of an oppressive darkness, a silence for naught but my own thoughts. It was hell in its truest forms - no motion, no other to give me company. I existed in that state for god only knows how long... And then I became aware of _them."_

"Them?" gently asked Flamel.

"The Whispers. They were all around me, speaking in voices too low to understand. It took me a long time before I realized they were talking not to me, but... through eachother, out into the darkness."

* * *

_**25th of May, 2007 - London, England** _

Following their centarian colleague was simply silence. The Veil stood, silently, rolling backwards through the centuries with nothing coming out. It was only when approaching the 1000 year mark that another being fell through.

The man was pale, almost chalk-white, and his eyes were cloudy and unfocused. Unseeing, he cowered on the floor, whispering silently through chapped lips.

When Harry got closer, he began to hear a fine, almost inaudible voice in his mind, and attempted to push the influence away with his occlumency - only for the man's whispering to stop apruptly, and his blind eyes zeroing in on Harry's own, holding onto his face even as he was carried from the hall.

He was followed by many others in ever-worsening states. Where the first man had simply been pale, those that followed him were _translucent_. Their limbs seemed frayed at the edges, and their mental abilities in turn grew stronger and stronger the farther back in time they had come from.

Eventually, a last one exited the structure, upright, walking on brittle bones, skin looking like mist as his body wavered in and out of existence. His blind eyes looked directly at Harry, and he could feel in his mind the echo of a presence, one greater than any he'd ever felt. It was replaced with a hollow feeling, and the man's mind withdrew, his face grinning broadly, before collapsing to the floor as his legs dissolved into mist below the knees.

In a croaky, unused voice, he spoke, "It's coming.." before fading away into nothingness.

Flamel almost instantly reacted - calling for a layered shield charm, all Unspeakables still in the chamber shouted various variants of _"Protego!"_ , while he weaved between the individuals and linked their spells together on the edges. Every time he completed a mend, the two shields would glow brightly for a split second, then settle into a larger, single shield, maintained by all those connected to it.

When the last shield was layered together, they'd formed a dome across the Veil, which had begun to ripple severely. The fabric had begun spiraling in on itself, forming a vortex of light that became more and more violent with the second.

"Be prepared to defend yourself!" someone shouted over the otherworldly noise, and none to soon, for in that moment, a... thing came out of the Veil.

It was grotesque beyond description, made of scintillating, shifting flesh, interspersed with eyes that looked wildly across the room. It skittered on a thousand legs, all made of bone, flesh, chitin, wood, metal and stone - and its coverings rippled like the shell of a bug about to take flight, plates of chitin shifting above and below eachother without rhyme and reason.

But its form was the least disturbing part - that honor went to its presence. It exuded an aura, one which awakened a long-buried fear in the minds of all those present. As its myriad eyes shifted across the chamber, taking in everything there, the gaze made everyone shiver as the slightly-too-sharp look passed across their face.

It seemed content to observe them for now - until a loud tearing sound echoed through the chamber. The Veil had torn once again, and this time, the lights on its frame died as well. The room was left in total darkness, and the entire group felt a great impact on the layered shield charm, as something from within rebounded with great force. The... being, whatever it was, gave a bone-chilling shriek, and loud, sharp impacts were heard across the shadowed room.

When someone managed to cast a light spell, they saw that the creature had changed - under the cover of darkness, it had _grown_ , more misshapen flesh spilling out from under the chitinous armor plating.

It had also unfurled a tail, easily forty feet long and tipped with a wickedly sharp tip, which it was using to pummel the ever-dimming shield charm.

Flamel shouted through the noise, "As soon as the shield falls, I want you all to fire at once! Use the strongest spell you have!"

Only moments after, the barrier broke into a thousand splinters, sounding like glass breaking, and the monster unfurled itself into the entire chamber, the eyes that dotted its body seemingly able to see everything, all at once. It fought with everything it had, stabbing at anything that moved with its tail, striking anyone foolish enough to get close with its legs, while constantly screeching in a barely audible frequency - inaudible to most, but those that got too close began clutching their heads while blood trickled from their ears, until the monster struck them through the chest with an errant stab.

Three groups quickly formed - one was cycling through shield charms, holding two layers while a third recast, slowly inching towards the open doorway while beset by the thing's stinger striking over and over. Another had conjured a small platform up the wall, and fired increasingly violent spells at the monster's armored shell, which was only lightly scratched, even when a fully-charged _Bombarda_ was flung against it. The third were concentrating on the beast's legs, severing those they could and attempting to weld those they couldn't cut to the floor of the chamber. They'd already succeeded in multiple of the being's metallic legs, and the first group had reached the main entryway - when the beast's stinger lashed away from the layered shield, and towards the conjured platform.

A quick reaction on Frederik's part saved his colleagues and him from instant death, and he fired a spell that caused the stinger to slam into the chamber wall instead of themselves. The platform they were on still fell to the floor, shattering into pieces. Several Unspeakables had been standing below it.

The third group, of which Harry was a part, was quickly running out of avenues - with the first group having filed out of the chamber, hopefully getting help, and the second group busy protecting their injured colleagues, the monster began attacking them with all its limbs.

When a swipe of the stinger took out the illumination charm, Flamel was quick to recast it - revealing that the being had grown to nearly double its previous size in the split second of darkness.

It had gained wings, but had (Merlin be praised) also grown slightly too big to maneuver efficiently within the chamber.

With the stinger not a threat, the third group began firing spell after spell at the section of the monster exposed to them - Most were either absorbed by the chitin or only slightly scratched it, even some of the darker ones Harry knew. Seeing no other option, he turned to Flamel.

"Permission to use Fiendfyre?"

The man looked at Harry for a long moment, before nodding. Harry, quick to the task, whipped out his charred Holly wand, and stuck it to the hilt into one of the way-too-human eyes that adorned the beast's hide.

It shrieked into his ear, causing him to be momentarily overwhelmed with pain, but he quickly clamped down on the pain and squared it away. He'd pay for that one later, but for now he needed the concentration. Isolating his pain placed him in a numb state, and he remained very aware of the blood coming from his nose, eyes and ears, but finished drawing forth the necessary emotion for a successful Fiendfyre.

Fiendfyre was a strange spell. At its core, all fire behaves like it does - but Fiendfyre is infused with a certain kind of hateful spirit that lends it its malicious intelligence. While not an Unforgiveable, being able to cast Fiendfyre still placed one on a very exclusive list, one occupied by a lot of dark wizards.

To cast fiendfyre, no incantation is necessary - unlike other spells, it is not a structured piece of magic, it has no form or function. No, it is different.

Fiendfyre is human hatred manifested through a wand.

Harry thought back to all those moments Voldemort had stolen from him - and even though time and therapy had eroded the emotions he associated with them, he could still draw on this feeling to fuel the spell. When he began feeling like his blood was on fire, he pushed all this hatred through the wand, which grew unbearably hot, and through the wand into the creature.

When Nicholas saw Harry fall backwards, he caught him and quickly dragged him into the waiting arms of the fellow Unspeakables, depositing the young man's body on the ground, leaving his fellows to worry over him.

Raising his wand, he returned his gaze to the monster, seeing that it had begun thrashing and an acrid smoke had begun pouring out of the gaps in its titanic chitinous shell.

* * *

It took a disturbingly long time for the monster to die. Its insides had actually smothered the spark of Fiendfyre, but not before it had done too much damage to the creature.

During the battle, several Unspeakables had died - and even more were injured. The injured had been shipped off towards St. Mungos, while the dead were placed within the DoM's morgue. During the cleanup, it was discovered that the monster's shell was almost completely resistant to magic, to the point where it took the entire surviving department to shrink the carcass to a more manageable size. Once confirmed dead, the body was carted to the magibiology lab for an autopsy, and to discover what the absolute hell it had been.

Once the chamber was free, the true repercussions of the monster's size became obvious. It had been too large for the room, and the entire structure was unstable - several makeshift wooden beams had had to be conjured and then petrified to hold up the chamber's ceiling, and its weight had cracked the floor, as well as the pedestal the Veil had sat upon.

The Veil's frame itself had thankfully survived, and it now lay on the floor, just as lifeless as it had been before all this.

* * *

**_2nd of June, 2007 - London, England_ **

Harry awoke to a pounding head, and the memory of an unearthly screech running through his consciousness.

Blinking away the sand in his eyes, he sat up - only to realize he felt much too numb to be normal. Pinching himself, he felt no pain, and began recalling more.

 _Oh, no._ was his first coherent thought, and he let himself fall back into the hospital bed, before settling into a slight trance, just enough to asses his own mind.

It looked like a battlefield. More returned to him as his mind began restoring itself, and he became aware of the source of his woes, right at the center of his conscious.

_That's right, I suppressed it._

In his mind's eye, he pictured a pulsing red ball shackled by chains, but he knew that that wasn't all too accurate. The mind would imagine visual cues, especially when he was looking within himself - no human was ever meant to objectively see their own mind's structure, so there was no reference frame for anything - but in reality, he was perceiving things through a set of mental senses that only vaguely corresponded to his physical ones.

The training of these mental senses (such as the sense of time, the sense of memory, the sense of logic) was a major component of Occlumency, usually pursued after the first goal of Occlumency, defense, had been reached. Harry was pants at the defense aspect of Occlumency, something he attributed to Voldemort's continual existence within his mind for much of his childhood, but he was reasonably talented at the second aspect - that of organisation.

Usually, the mind would organize itself properly, and do so in the most efficient manner, but with age, disease or brain damage, this natural mechanism could be damaged. Additionally, Occlumency allowed a wizard total and absolute control over all information reaching their mind, which was often more of a curse than a blessing. The rare few things that it could be used for carried harsh penalties, such as the one he'd done.

Using the mental equivalent of a conjuration charm, Harry had placed a barrier between his conscious experience of reality and the sensory information flowing towards it from his body. In so doing, he had essentially "disabled" all sensation from it, including that of pain, and had been able to perform the spell that saved them all to the finish.

However, magic always exacts its price, and instead of discarding these sensations, they had instead been building up behind the mental barrier. This was why the technique was not used very often - it would spare pain, yes, but at the end, the barrier would have to be broken, and all the built up pain would be experienced in a singular moment.

Not breaking the barrier was not an option - his mind would begin to disintegrate as it placed more and more importance into the barrier, eventually draining away his will to live to maintain it, subsequently killing him.

Taking a deep breath in the real world, Harry reached out to the barrier and tore it away like a bandaid.

Then he screamed loudly enough to make his voice give out.


	6. Reclaiming the Past

_**3rd of June, 2007 - London, England** _

Harry awoke to the same hospital room, the haze of potions clouding his mind. Across the room sat Luna and Neville, both staring intently at a potted plant that looked very nervous at their close scrutiny. Harry's light cough tore their gazes away from the plant, which seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as they rushed over to the hospital bed.

"Harry, you're awake! How're you feeling?" asked Luna, checking his pulse.

"Good. I think," he replied, flexing his tingling fingers and toes, "yeah, good. Everything still works."

"You gave us a pretty massive scare, Harry. When they were carrying the injured from the DoM, we saw you laid out on a stretcher, with blood coming out of your entire face."

Harry winced at Neville's words, then asked, "Did anyone... how many are dead?"

Both of their shoulders fell.

"Ten are confirmed dead - including Johnson, Flakk and Stimson, I'm so sorry Harry - and a lot are still injured."

Harry had known all ten, as one does one's colleagues, and he was saddened by the deaths of those three especially. James Flakk, Angela Stimson and Robert Johnson had been members of his team.

"Anything else happen?"

"Flamel ordered the Veil's frame buried in a sand pit and sealed off the chamber himself. I think he's waiting for your opinion on what to do with the damn thing."

Harry let himself fall back onto the pillow.

Could he in good conscience recommend a continuation of research on the Veil? So far, it had been a complete and total disaster. Ten people were dead, several more injured... but at the same time, they had made a momentous breakthrough.

Harry contemplated this for a long time.

* * *

**_8th of June, 2007 - London, England_ **

When Harry hobbled into the Department after weeks of hospital stay, he saw the full extent of the damage first-hand. His friends had visited and told him, of course, but the magnitude of their descriptions had left much to be desired. In the corridors and halls around the Veil room, the superstructure was cracked, in places it had to be held up by shimmering fields of magic or beams of petrified wood. Several corridors were still being reconstructed by various colleagues, even in the lower levels of the Ministry above.

Standing before the entrance to the Veil chamber, Harry beheld the magical seal placed upon it, and was once again in awe at Flamel's mastery of enchantment. The man had made it his life's work to combine the (very disparate) fields of Enchantment, which entailed the charming of objects while they were being assembled to create a greater whole, and Alchemy, which entailed the transmutation of material and energy into different forms, into one.

Many had told him it was a fool's errand, that the two had nothing to do with each other, but over the centuries, he had slowly and painstakingly discovered ways to apply both to exponential effect. The Seal was one of these works, that much Harry could see immediately.

It took the form of a metal brace across the entire door, welding it shut - but the brace itself was assembled from a thousand pieces, all of which responded as one when he tried to touch the door. Extending his hand, he felt the disparate magics of every single piece combining together into a greater whole, which predicted what he was trying to do and gently pushed his hand away.

"It's beautiful, isn't it, sir?" asked a voice he didn't recognize from behind him. Fighting the urge to spin about and draw his wand, Harry instead looked over his shoulder, and saw an unknown woman in an Unspeakable robe. It was cut slightly differently than he was used to, and she noticed his questioning look.

"Ah, sorry. I didn't introduce myself. I'm from the New York chapter. Your boss called in a few favors, so some colleagues and I were sent to help you guys get back on your feet."

Harry nodded, that made sense. With half of his colleagues out of commission, it made sense that Flamel called in some help to set things straight. The woman continued speaking, however.

"You know, I've always wanted to have a look at the thing."

"Thing?"

"The Veil. I find it fascinating. Where does it lead? How does it work? But I could never get clearance to visit here and study it."

"Well, for now it leads nowhere. It's what caused... all this. We did something foolish."

Both of them fell silent, until eventually, the woman spoke up once more.

"I heard about what happened, in the broadest terms for the cleanup. Some accident? The guys are saying that something came out of the Veil, which would be fascinating."

"They're right. Something did come out of the damn thing, and it killed ten people. I'm not sure if we should ever touch it again."

The woman almost looked offended.

"What, you got burned one time and you'll stick your head in the sand? I have a friend, a Numag, who told me 'If at first you don't succeed, try harder'. With respect, we are Unspeakables. This is part of the job description."

"Truth is, I've been wavering between those two. It's my decision, Flamel made that clear, but I don't know if continuing on would be dishonoring the deaths of those people."

She looked chastised, but Harry couldn't bring himself to be angry with her. And she was right! It did nothing for those people to bury the Veil and ignore it.

Harry made his decision, and began hobbling off after saying a quick goodbye. A few steps away from the door, he turned around and looked at the woman, "You know, I have a friend who's just like you. I think you would get along great. Hermione Granger, in Metamagics."

"I'll be sure to seek her out. Thank you, Mr. Potter."

"No, thank you. What's your name, by the way?"

"Carter. Sam Carter."

* * *

**_12th of June, 2007 - London, England_ **

"I want to continue, Flamel."

"I thought you would."

The two were sat in the older man's office, sharing a cup of tea. The Department was looking fine again, much of the structure had been repaired and almost all of their guests were preparing to leave.

"We need more protection, though. In case something like this happens again."

"A separate facility, perhaps?" suggested Flamel.

"That would be best. Now that the Veil is inactive, we may be able to glean more from it. I read Hermione's report about how it's not rejecting spells anymore."

"An interesting phenomenon to say the least. I understand she's already working on a spell to visualize its insides?"

"Yes. You know how fast she is with the Matrices, it'll be done in half a year, maybe nine months at most."

Harry stood up, and paced.

"I know I caused this, Flamel."

"You did no such thing, Harry. You're an Unspeakable, under my command. I gave the go-ahead for your project. By any reasonable measure, it was my fault, not yours. Not to mention, you killed the thing in the end."

"I still set it in motion. My actions led to their deaths."

"Deaths caused by a monster, not by your wand. Did you fire a curse at them? Did you enchant the monster to kill them?"

"...No."

"Then you aren't at fault. It's as simple as that."

Harry fell back into the chair.

"Look, Potter, I know how hard it is to lose people that look to you for guidance. It'll be a while until you find peace with yourself, but don't let this blind you to your greater ambitions. You're closer to solving the mystery of the Veil than any wizard in the last age."

"You're right, of course."

"That I am. Now tell me, Harry, what you had in mind."

"We'll need a facility, somewhere out of London. Out of the mainland, even, if something like this happens again."

"So, an island, then?"

"Seems like it."

"Did you have any in mind?"

"Well... I may have. I don't know if you'll like it, though."

"I find it exceedingly unlikely that your choice will surprise me."

"I was thinking Azkaban."

* * *

It took only a few short days to get permission from the ICW to move the Veil.

It took a lot longer to secure Azkaban Island.

The Prison Island had been disbanded as a prison after the second war, a decision "helped along" by Harry's quiet insistence that the prison only furthered the corruption of Dark Magic. After a lot of back-and-forth, magical Britain had agreed to a treaty that allowed them to ship their convicted dark wizards to Nurmengrad, an ICW facility holding many of the worst dark lords in history. Small-time criminals would be imprisoned on a local level, and many sentences that carried Azkaban time, such as being an unregistered Animagus, were instead lessened to fines or the revoking of wand-rights for a set time.

After the second war, the Dementors had not returned to the island, and could not be enticed to go back there, either - they instead began scattering at Voldemort's Death. Luckily, they had all been corralled eventually with no lives lost, but it was close in many cases as swarms descended on muggle villages and one group had attempted to attack London itself. Instead, they were placed within small containers (being non-beings, their shape was very mutable) and locked into a warded cell at the deepest point of a natural cave system, which was then filled with rubble. Nothing short of a meteorite could uncover it, and opening the cell itself would require the unanimous consent of all ICW member nations.

For about four years, Azkaban had stood empty, silently, in the North Sea, caught in a political deadlock as many members of the Wizengamot scrambled over its ownership. It was a fortress, almost impenetrable, enchanted with spells unknown to modern wizards, as their creators had taken them to the grave.

Because of this, attaining it was no easy task.

Flamel had to use much of his clout to convince key members of the Wizengamot that the island was not worth their while - it was tainted by darkness, suffering and despair, the harsh sea and existence of iron-clad anti-teleportation wards made it a pain to get to and it was obviously not completely impenetrable. None of these were lies, but they were also not the full truth. With sufficient work, the structure could be cleansed of the dark residue sticking to its masonry, its wards could be repaired, and the DoM had access to several methods of transportation that might be able to pass through its sophisticated defense matrix.

In the end, it was the man's unflappable charisma that won them over, and Azkaban Island was officially signed into the care of the Department of Mysteries, on the 2nd of September, 2007.

* * *

**_3rd of September, 2007 - Azkaban, The North Sea  
_ **

Harry, with several other Unspeakables in tow, slowly and gingerly vacated the rinky-dink they had arrived on. Their robes shielded them from the harsh winds, but the overwhelming cold was not fully part of the weather - much of it emanated from the structure itself.

A quick external survey confirmed what they knew - the fortress itself, a large, triangular prism of black rock, was structurally sound. There was damage at one of the top corners, the one Voldemort had broken into, but it did not threaten the integrity of the entire building.

According to their floor plan, the structure had seven levels above ground, and at least three below. The full extent of its depths had never been explored on account of the Dementors, which had made their home in the fortress' bowels.

The group split in two - one guarding the ground floor, finding any entrances to the deeper levels, and the other climbing upwards and scouting the upper levels, which had once held a great number of small, cramped cells. Harry was part of this group.

Climbing upwards, they began noting signs of Azkaban's true purpose - the narrow windows, long corridors and differently constructed cells contradicted its nature as a prison. It was obvious it had been altered at a later date. Once they'd reached the roof, which was sloped harshly to one side, they descended once again to meet up with their colleagues.

The lower levels were much more interesting. The first basement held quarters, which had once belonged to the prison guards - disgraced Aurors sent to the island as punishment - while the second basement level was empty save for a small kitchen. Hermione snorted in disgust at the elven footprints still visible in the dust that had settled over the structure. She still remembered the day Azkaban had been vacated of personnel, and she'd seen the elf among with the few prison guards and small-time criminals.

Duffy had opened up eventually. She had once belonged to a wealthy wizard, who had given all his elves clothing in a fit of rage upon finding out his son was not of his blood. Duffy had drifted for a while, eventually turning up half-starved at the Ministry, where a wizard "offered" her work, "out of the goodness of his heart". When Duffy had seen the black prism on the horizon, it had been too late for her to back down.

Hermione, still as fervently supportive of elven freedom as she'd been during her school years, had pointed her in the direction of Winky and the ELF (Elven Liberation Front), which the other elf had started after Dobby's death.

Already, the small group had attained many supporters among the populace, helped along whenever they could by Hermione and her friends shutting down any attempts by the Wizengamot to force the elves back into slavery.

Several levels below the kitchen, they scouted out the dementor's catacombs. This was where the non-beings had spent most of their time, and the very rock itself had seemingly absorbed their auras over their millennia of service. The rocks themselves seemed to be oozing darkness once they'd reached the fifth level, and further down even their spells began sputtering. They felt like the entire fortress was bearing down onto their heads, and the air had a heady feeling of black magic to it.

Eventually summoning Patronus charms against the encroaching darkness, they pressed on, delving deeper and deeper into the structure, carefully scouting out every floor.

Eventually, they reached the seventh sub-basement, which held a large, triangular chamber. Within, there were three large stones made of smoky, black quartz.

They'd found the Azkaban Wardstones.

A rudimentary examination of the stones revealed a lot of damage. The stones' coloring was not natural - they had originally been crystal clear, but had been absorbing dark magic for close to three thousand years at that point. Engraved upon those stones were the ward schemas for Azkaban, revealing in great detail to those who knew how to read such things what would happen should anyone violate the perimeter. It was not pretty.

They took a small sample of the tainted stones, then legged it back to the ground floor, away from the oppressive darkness.

* * *

**_9th of September, 2007 - London, England_ **

The magical and material analysis confirmed their fears. The crystals were too cloudy, too tainted and too damaged for repair. They would need to fashion new ones - indeed, two sets, one to specifically absorb all the ambient darkness clinging to the structure, which would damage any new ones they would set, and a second set which would hold the new Wards.

To this end, the original wardstones had been extracted and transported to the DoM.

Once there, Flamel had the idea of enlisting the help of Goblins. Every department head was in favor, but many expressed concerns over the Goblins' nature.

An admonishment for racism was all that was needed to get the naysayers to settle down.

So on the ninth, Flamel himself walked into Gringotts, spoke Kûhn with a few Goblins, and was eventually admitted into the office of the Gringotts CEO.

The squat reptilian looked at the human with suspicion, but Flamel simply took out the sample they'd taken, and placed it onto his table.

_"What is this supposed to mean, Flamel? Have the people of Khân-and not made themselves clear the last time we spoke?"_

_"Ah, but you misunderstood. I come to you today not with an ultimatum, but an opportunity."_

_"An opportunity. To do unpaid, thankless work for you humans, I presume."_

_"You are as wise as your great-grandmother, Chief Executive Gal-Ral. Inspect the sample I placed before you. Taste its magic. It is darker, darker than much of what you have seen, is it not?"_

_"I can feel that from where I am sitting, human. I do not see where you are going with this."_

_"Well, what if I were to tell you that this is a fragment of the Wardstones of Azkâban?"_

Gal-Ral's pupils widened, and her gaze narrowed in on the fragment. Picking it up gingerly with two unsheathed claws, she inspected the gently wavering shadow within the crystal shard.

_"What would you say to a trade, just between you and I. I give you the original Wardstones, and you provide me with a clean copy of them, as well as a set of blank ones."_

The Goblin's tooth-filled grin would have frightened a child, and she spoke in glee.

_"It would be my honor, Flamel."_

* * *

_**13th of December, 2007 - Azkaban, The North Sea** _

The Goblins had honored their deal, as they always did. Two months after Flamel's visit, he had levitated a set of three large, crystalline prisms into the main atrium of the DoM, replacing the ancient ones that had vanished two months beforehand.

Gathering together the Department, everyone that could came with him to Azkaban, for once apparating to the island, which was currently lacking its defenses.

Once at the lowest level, They quickly set up a set of three large columns made of white quartz, slotting them into the indentations the original Wardstones had occupied. Immediately, the Darkness of the chamber seemed to be drawn into them, and the three columns gained a pale glow from within.

Quickly vacating the island once more, noone was around as the entire structure shuddered slightly, millennia of slick corruption draining from the masonry, the air, the atmosphere around the island and the water surrounding it. The magic seemed to fold in on itself, withdrawing towards the island and finally into the underbowels of the structure, eventually reaching the final chamber and being absorbed into the columns, which were now struggling to contain the light spilling from within.

A few hours later, the team returned, looking in awe at the cleansed island around them. The water seemed less murky, the air was warmer and the perpetual storm above had actually broken up in places, leaving spears of sunlight to shine upon the Fortress for the first time in three thousand years.

Returning to the (spooky, but less malicious) underlevels, they quickly removed the crackling pillars, which had turned from shiny quartz into salt, and moved them topside, throwing them into the ocean. They would dissolve in the water, scattering the absorbed magic into the oceans, where the dark taint would be washed away and it would return back into the natural cycle.

Flamel had taken the long route, walking inconspicuously through London with three large, invisible quartz prisms floating through the air above him, boarded a small boat at the Thames and sailed out, towards the island itself. The Wardstones were too sensitive to be shrunk or Apparated, which necessitated manual transport to where they would be needed.

Luckily, the internal corridors of Azkaban were broad enough to fit the three pillars with ease, and they were gently slotted into their predetermined spots.

The entire island seemed to breathe in and then out, and magic rushed into the stones, which began glowing from within. Thin channels chiseled into the floor began glowing, lines running up the walls and through the corridors, criss-crossing the entire Fortress, which began altering itself, shifting internal stonework around. The group watched in awe as the massive bricks Azkaban was constructed from began shifting across the entire prism, masonry seemingly growing from within to repair damage to the structure and change its internal layout.

When the restructuring was complete, the glowing channels of light mostly died down, except for a few - some pulsing lines remained, running up and down the exterior wall, lining the internal corridors and emanating from the gently glowing wardstones at the very bottom of the structure.

It was still made of black rock, but the orderly lines of light running across the structure lent it a majesty they had not envisioned before.

For the occasion, they planted a cherry seed in the craggy dirt adorning one of the shores, and shared a few bottles of Firewhiskey between them.

"To us!" someone shouted, and the rest joined in.


	7. Penultimate

_**16th of December, 2007 - Azkaban, The North Sea** _

The Veil was eventually relocated after the fortress was confirmed safe. The sudden structural rearrangement was unexpected, but welcomed - it seemed that the ambient magic of the island had known what they wanted to use it for. The endless cell blocks were gone - in their place, chambers and corridors had appeared. many of these were empty, but specific purposes quickly became obvious - Some of the halls were warded, others were strangely open or held small podiums and pedestals. At the very top, there was a large chamber, perfect to set up the Veil.

Further down were laboratories, complete with plumbing and great ventilation, a warded chamber that could absorb magic hitting its walls, quarters and a new kitchen with attached mess hall.

The basement levels had repurposed themselves away from the dreary catacombs they had been before, into halls obviously meant for storage, a large vault missing its door and several other empty chambers.

* * *

_**5th of May, 2008 - Azkaban, The North Sea** _

In the following months, they would make great breakthroughs on the Veil. While inactive, it seemed to have lost much its magical resistance - spells began to reveal details about the materials it was built from, which was unlike any found on Earth; the frame seemed to be constructed from a quartz-like metal that had the curious effect of disrupting any spell penetrating deeper in than a few milimeters. It took a few months for them to realize the Veil's black coloring was not its natural state - the material had corroded, oxidized, and after drawing this erosion away, the true dark silver of the Veil's frame was revealed. The exposed metal was covered in wax to stop it from corroding anew, and the team spent a lot of time working on the samples they had managed to extract. The Veil's frame itself seemed to scatter any spell cast upon it into motes of magic, which made the basic "revelio" or "expositae" spells impossible to use. However, the scrapings they'd done exhibited a lessened version of this that could be overcome with sufficient power behind the spell.

The magic necessary to overcome this effect was just skirting the line the spell could handle, and many wands sparked and spells failed spectacularily on the smallest samples of the material.

Until finally, Hermione's work was complete. She'd spent the last half year working out a spell, using her experimental Spellmatrix, that would function in a different manner and hopefully reveal what the Veil's frame actually contained.

"Bear with me, the Matrix is still experimental, so this one will be a bit weird." she said to the assembled team before drawing her wand and placing its tip onto one of the metal parts. She spoke with deliberate enunciation, _"Su elammnis, etienn calam."_ Those who'd been with the Reality Department recognized the spell - it was an old tool of theirs, designed to allow the wand's tip to tether itself against a subjective point in space-time. Until the counterspell was spoken, the wand would 'drag along' a point of said space-time, until the spell's (relatively low) upper energy bound was reached and it would disintegrate, snapping space-time back to the way it had been before.

Hermione gently pulled the wand upwards, and in a reality-defying way, space distorted its tip, causing a segment of the Veil to rise with it, warping across itself like it had been glued to the wood. Hermione then took out a second wand, and pointed it at a part with the most extreme deformation.

 _"Revelio tandem metallicuso"_.

A small spark shot from her wand, disappearing into the metal, and she waited for a moment. The spark came back out, and entered her wand once more.

_"Su edammis, etienn malis"_

She spoke the counterspell, and the warped point of space-time snapped back to where it had been before. The Veil looked just as it had before. Hermione held up her wand, and wove a small Illusion spell.

Before her appeared a glowing representation of the Veil, and a twirl made the image peel open, revealing a row upon row of monochrome crystals.

"And there we are."

* * *

**_12th of June, 2008 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

Interpreting the image took a lot longer.

They eventually figured out that some of the crystals seemed to correspond to the position of the symbols on the Veil, but had no idea about their significance. After casting the spell a few more dozen times, they eventually managed to divine that one of the crystals, located at the very top of the Veil, was larger than the others, and contained quite a bit of magic.

Accessing this magic proved extremely difficult. An advance made by the Space Chamber meant they could bend space in such a way that their wand would poke around the Veil's metal casing and directly into its internals without actually opening up the thing, but this was tedious and prone to failure. They took reading after reading of the core crystal, eventually discovering that it contained not just a single mass of energy, but many, many patterns, arranged in different ways.

One of the team likened it to the way enchantments were structured, and that proved to be the breakthrough - isolating one of the patterns revealed a definite logic to its structure, just not a way to interpret it. However, they managed to record this pattern and poked at it for weeks on end.

Eventually, it was Harry who found that there was another pattern, stored within the larger pattern, that held a different construction - like the input into an enchantment. Isolating this pattern revealed a set of six distinct values.

What these values represented remained a mystery, however.

* * *

_**17th of January, 2009 - Azkaban, The North Sea** _

The base at Azkaban was coming along very nicely. Over the year it had been in operation, several of the DoM's departments had vacated London and instead set themselves up on the island instead. Amara's department had been among the first to migrate, and along with Metamagics now occupied the entire second and third stories of the building.

Frederik's department was currently in the process of migrating some of their more volatile experiments to the warded fourth level of the Building, and there were already talks about migrating the Cognitoarcanem department in its entirety onto the fifth floor. Flamel put it very likely that the entire DoM would be migrated to Azkaban by the end of the decade. Most were happy with this - especially the Ministry, which was salivating at the thought of being able to use the natural Nexus of Leylines underneath their location to power the country's defenses, and not having to share it with the DoM.

Harry's Team had grown once more. Several of the Unspeakables that had helped with the cleanup after the disaster had elected to stay and join it, among them the very ambitious Samantha Carter. True to Harry's prediction, her and Hermione got along like a house on fire, and already efforts were undergoing to develop a spell that would decode the patterns found within the Veil. If these could be decoded, its true purpose would be revealed.

There was a betting pool going around, consisting of several galleons, a drop of Felix Felicis and a brand-new Sneakoscope as to what it might be. Harry swore up and down it was a way to access some higher or lower level of existence, others thought it may be a storage device and yet others bet on it being a tool to examine magic itself. Someone had even bet on it being a teleportation device.

Their big break came in January of 2009, when most of the storage lockers were transferred out of London and into the much more secure basement at Azkaban. One of the crates began responding to one of their detection spells, which was specifically formulated to detect the unknown material the Veil was built from. Several of the crates, bundles and barrels responded in this way, and were set aside to be looked at later.

Most of these were scraps of metal, once assumed to be steel - but two in particular were interesting. The first was a crate holding scrap from Egypt, obtained during the 60's, which showed a promising similarity to the Veil's construction. The exposed crystals were especially interesting. The second was a fragment of some sort of pedestal, whose buttons held images of the constellations.

Curiously, the metal of the fragments was slightly different than that of the Veil - it was non-magnetic, where the Veil's was, it had never corroded, and it was seemingly indestructible to anything but the most extreme spells they risked on it. And even then, it never melted or scorched, their sample simply began to glow a deep red, and eventually cracked in half.

They began studying the crystals they had extracted from the scraps, and were rewarded with a wealth of knowledge. They seemed to be immeasurably more complex versions of those present in the Veil, holding enough energy to make them glow from within, while still maintaining their ordered structure. Several parallels were discovered, catalogued and compared, and slowly a comparison was built of the two different patterns. The one in the Veil was incredibly complex, yes, but the one from the fragments surpassed it by _orders of magnitude_.

* * *

**_12th of February, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

It would take a year for them to finally find the missing link. The crystals recovered from the fragments were more complex, yes, but examining those which were not the "main" one, they found a common link - they could accept energy, do something to it, and then return a response. What this response was, or what they would do with the energy was still up in the air.

The Team also invented a basic spell to insert a coded energy pattern into the crystals, which helped immensely in research.

The first trial were a resounding success. Inserting a burst of energy into one of the crystals behind a symbol on the Veil made that symbol light up, and the Veil make a noise - doing this to several revealed that the response given by the crystals was different for each one. They began testing these patterns, and noted that some of them were identical to the unknown sequence they had recovered from the central crystal the year prior. Mapping out these patterns, they found the six symbols on the frame which corresponded to them.

However, the logical next step did nothing. The Veil would accept their input, but it would not do anything further, and shut down after thirty seconds, the same as any other time they'd tried.

When they attempted to activate more of the crystals, the Veil would refuse to accept more than seven, but it would not do anything either - it sat, symbols ignited, for thirty seconds, and then shut down. No amount of energy applied to any of the crystals, even the core one, did anything.

The team was stumped.

* * *

**_1st of March, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

It was the last day of the DoM's residence in London. The last experiment had been transferred, the last storage locker emptied and the shadowy halls were now locked, for good. They were to be mostly abandoned.

When Flamel stepped into the elevator one last time, he waved his wand over the interior, spoke a word of command and the Fidelius that had kept the Department a secret finally dissolved. It could not be recast over Azkaban, as too many people knew about the island, but it was always good to dissolve a useless Fidelius. They had a tendency to mutate out of control when not used.

He travelled upwards, stepped into the office of the Minister and ceremonially placed a set of ancient keys into the man's hand.

_"Guard these keys, Minister for Magic. They are the Keys to the Realm."_

The Minister, having been inducted into the Ritual that was taking place, simply closed his hand around the keys and nodded. Magic swirled around them, and possession of the Ministry Wardstone was transferred.

The Ministry, unlike many other locations, possessed only a single Wardstone in its basement. It was fed by the convergence that existed beneath London, and was part of a country-wide network of milestones, pillars, runestones and other arcane sites that formed a web across the entire island. It was this web that anchored the Trace, for instance. The Stone at the Ministry's core was not a stone at all, however - rather than a material Wardstone, it was a metaphysical one. The Ministry's defenses were laid upon the meaning of an object, not a physical piece of crystal or rock.

In ancient days, a city had stood where the Ministry was today, a city known as Camelot - and while this legend had transferred to the muggle world as well, it was slightly inaccurate. The sword in the stone had been placed by Arthur, a revolutionary acting against the monarchy's oppression, and had remained there after his death at the hands of the King's knights. The wards of the Ministry were built on the circumstance it signified - it was a symbol of authority not being anyone's right, a symbol that the people should govern themselves. This was used by the Ministry to ensure perpetual democracy across Magical Britain, which seceded from the Monarchy after Arthur's death.

Indeed, it was this instance which had contributed to the witch-hunts in britain. King James II was unsatisifed with the sovereignity of the magical citizens of Britain, and used the Church to attempt to subjugate them.

This decision sparked a near-genocide across much of Britain and America, and directly led to the formation of the Statute of Secrecy, which was held and maintained in the ICW headquarters in Rome.

* * *

**_17th of October, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

It was a sunny day on Azkaban.

They'd settled in nicely, and were, as usual, busy with random experiments. Flamel himself was sitting in his office at the very top of the fortress, sitting with his back to the two broad windows at his back.

He was writing a letter - not of any real importance, but over his centuries as Head Unspeakable in Britain, he knew the importance of being in good graces with one's fellows. It just so happened that he was writing a response to the department in New Zealand, which had recently requested to send one of their own agents to Azkaban and help with the Veil Project.

Just as he'd decorated the letter with his sweeping signature, there was a chime at his door and he shouted, "come in!"

At the door were three of his Unspeakables - Potter, Granger and the american transfer, Carter. They looked excited.

"Come in, come in, have some tea. What's happening?"

Harry took the lead.

"We figured it out, Nick."

Flamel raised an eyebrow, and leant forward. Harry continued. "It was Carter - we were already halfway there with the energy patterns, but she realized that every part of the Veil is important. Basically, we forgot to make it spin."

Noting Flamel's raised eyebrow, Harry pressed on.

"We've known for a while that the Veil needs more than just the combination. It was Carter who suggested we make it spin, like it did in London, and that actually worked. The Veil has an internal ring, which acts like a gyroscope, and keeps its internals oriented exactly upwards, away from the surface of the Earth."

Carter took over for him.

"We made it spin, and sent the energy in exactly as the core crystal was aligned to one of the symbol crystals. There was a definite exchange of information between the two. The core crystal accepted a tad of magic, sent it into the smaller one, the symbol it was attached to lit up and the response from the symbol crystal was sent back into the core. That response made the core crystal access the next symbol in its storage."

Granger was next.

"So then we obviously tried the one combination we know. I modified the spell I created to test the crystals into a sequence, and inserted the six symbols we do know. The Veil seems to have some internal protocol for this, and worked through them in sequence - and on the sixth, there was a prompt from the core to my wand. It's expecting a seventh symbol."

Harry took over seamlessly.

"Luna solved that problem, actually. You know how she's been studying the vampire language?"

Flamel nodded, but didn't know where Potter was going with this.

"Well, it's... very mathematical. Precise. She suggested we look at the complexity of the patterns and try to find the most basic or unique one, because that's how that language is structured. And that worked! It may be the Veilbuilders' equivalent of 'On', 'Simsalabim' or 'Activate', but it doesn't matter. We added it to the sequence, and the Veil began drawing magic into itself. I evacuated the chamber, and it eventually died down again, but I think we're on the right track. We need more energy, though."

Flamel closed his eyes, because he knew what Harry was about to ask.

"I want permission to draw the Wyld again."


	8. Walkthrough

**18th of October, 2010 - London, England**

Harry would not get his permission so easily this time (not that he had _actually_ gotten one the last time), and was told to wait until Flamel had secured someone from both St. Mungos and the ICW Office for High-Energy Magical Affairs.

For once being out of work, he instead took the day off Flamel had forced upon him in stride, and decided to visit Sirius.

Sirius, after he'd fallen out of the Veil, had drifted in and out of consciousness for weeks. Something about the curse that had struck him in the chest, combined with the ambient magic of the Veil had caused a side-effect that had almost killed him. Even now, he walked better with a cane than without one, and had needed a lot of encouragement to actually use it. He'd eventually caved, but only when his Healer had made clear in no uncertain terms that the fact he was even walking around at all was a miracle. The man was proud, but not proud enough to deny an incensed healer when she had to repair his knee for the seventh time in one month.

When Harry had tried to give his Black inheritance back, Sirius had insisted on the lion's share of the money staying with Harry. He'd taken the abeyant name (not that it had done any real good for anyone - name law was very clear in that area; only one last name could be held by any one person in the magical world. It related to an obscure field of magic to do with names, which was more Ron's area.), but the Black Fortune was squarely in Harry's hands.

Sadly, he could not invest it, or else he'd be even more filthy rich than he was already, as the various treaties the Goblin Nation had struck with the Wizards of Britain essentially allowed their "bank" to do only one singular thing: Store objects of value. There was little more to the Gringotts buildings in various magical enclaves around the world, the entire banking agency only a single branch of Gringotts Inc, more or less forced into being by several overlapping treaties.

Gringotts Inc. was a curious company, however. In the Muggle world, it would be called a "Megacorporation", but the magical world lacked the scope for financial operations on that scale. It controlled, directly or indirectly, all companies, corporations and other ventures within the Goblin Nation, and had recently subsumed the emperor as its de-facto government. The Daily Prophet had had a field day at that time - report after report of a "quiet coup among the Goblins", articles riddled with thinly-veiled racism against Goblins, insinuations about their supposedly "duplicitous nature". Luckily, the Second Blood War had shaken things up enough for a number of startup newspaper companies to be founded, and amidst the chaos after the war, many of these had risen to be large enough to compete with the Prophet. The largest of these, The Trinity Report, had gained a massive boost in popularity when the people realized that that newspaper was much, much more objective than the Prophet.

And so, Harry finally came out of his thoughts, knocked on the not-so-dreary-anymore door, and frowned at the tatters of magic he could sense beneath his knuckles. Sirius had ripped something out of the house's ward schema, violently.

Sirius opened the door, leaning on his cane, and broke into a smile at seeing Harry.

"Harry! Come in, come in!"

Harry was ushered into the room, and hung his coat onto the rack. Looking around, he found himself once more surprised at the state of Grimmauld Place. Gone was the dreary air, the shadows dancing in the corner of your eye, the dampening effect of the entire house. Sirius had, at some point, grown into a mad frenzy of interior design, and had transfigured and charmed the entire house into a state much more befitting of the 21st century. Even now, he could often be found tweaking some furniture or comparing colors.

He and Sirius talked for a bit, never delving any deeper than the bare pleasantries. There had been an irreconcilable break in their relationship when Sirius had died. To Sirius, Harry was too different to the one he'd known, too similar to both James and Lily to bear looking at without a pang in his heart. To Harry, Sirius had already been grieved, his death accepted and worked through. He could not bring himself to open those wounds again, not when they were already healed.

Still, both men remained loose friends, though both occasionally forgot the barriers they'd set around themselves. It was these moments that kept Harry visiting.

* * *

**_28th of October, 2010 - Rome, Italy_ **

Nicholas was dressed his best as he paced across the waiting chamber.

The ICW senate was currently in session, voting on some new law, but he had finally managed to secure an audience. Luckily, magical bureaucracy was usually kept incredibly light, and wizards tended to be a lot more pragmatic than muggles, so he did not have to wait too long. He would have preferred not to wait at all, however.

Really, it was Potter's fault. After his stunt in the DoM a few years prior, Nicholas had been summoned before the Senate to give witness to the situation, alongside Potter himself. They'd both been admonished harshly for the risk they'd taken, commended for their ability in averting catastrophe and told in no uncertain terms not to do anything like it again. The ICW took the Wyld very, very seriously. Harry's wanton drawing had caused ripples within the magical field of the planet, which had caused far-reaching effects across many member nations. Several major groups had complained about the disturbance, finding crops withered, observing strange migrational patterns across species, and in one especially severe case observing a Leyline-shift across several meters, which caused a number of magical confluxes to misalign. The ICW was able to restore the Line, but it had been a close call.

And now, he was planning to convince them to allow that very same thing to happen again. He liked to play reluctant, but even he had been gripped by the mystery of the Veil at some point in his past. And now, that ancient interest was waking up once more.

Eventually, the large golden doors creaked open, and an intern waved him through.

Stepping into the chamber, he was (as the designers had no doubt intended) overwhelmed by its pure grandeur. He knew his history - the hall he now stood inside of was old, older than most magical sites on the planet today. It was the heart of Roma Magna, the Roman Undercity, upon which the modern muggle city had been built. In its heyday, it had been the meeting place for roman sorcerers, and when that empire had fallen, the remaining mages had made the decision to sink the hall beneath the city. Over the centuries, it had become forgotten by the Muggles, who had built upon the ruins of Rome above. Roma Magna remained a Mekka for sorcerers, especially during the Dark Age, and with time, the Undercity had been built, expanding outwards from the Hall of Sorcerers into what it was today. Roma Magna was, without a doubt, the capital of all wizardkind.

The hall itself had been hewn from a titanic boulder in ancient times, and even now, that was still visible. The walls were rocky, and from the ceiling hung narrow stalactites, each adorned with a glowing point of light. It gave the illusion of an endless starfield overhead. The hall was banded in gold, silver and bronze, with large supports embedded into the walls, shimmering with powerful enchantments in the half-darkness.

Nicholas strode confidently, calmly, onto the narrow bridge, only stopping once he reached the raised podium at the very center of the hall. Around him, the floor fell away into a pit, and above him, row upon row of seats extended upwards. over seven-thousand nations, enclaves, tribes, corporations, organisations and assorted non-human diplomats and ambassadors were sitting on the Senate, governing all of wizardkind into the future.

The High Orator, not truly the leader but the speaker, stood up. She leaned heavily onto a gnarled oak staff, and rapped it to the ground thrice. Light flashed from the staff's tip on every strike, and the murmuring in the hall quieted down. Nicholas felt many, many eyes on him.

Too many, for his liking.

The High Orator's voice echoed throughout the hall. "Grandmaster Nicholas Asmodeus Flamel. You have requested the audience of this Senate in order to seek permission to draw upon the Weave of Gaia, the Wild Magic of the Earth. What new situation has arisen that may necessitate this Senate rescinding its previous recommendation, and consider the risk that that action will present?"

Nicholas gathered his confidence.

"Honored Senate. A new development in my Chapter's study of the Veil has borne fruit. We have finally figured out how to activate the device, but as you are no doubt aware, it requires more than the individual power of wizards and witches. Its demand can only be met through a connection to the Wyld."

The murmuring broke out of the silence it had fallen into, and several senators stood up in protest. Several lit their wands, but not as many as expected, and the High Orator gestured at one of them.

The man looked old, too old, ancient, decrepit, almost, to Nicholas' eyes. His sunken eyes held a hidden glint of intelligence, however, which made the immortal cautious.

"Grandmaster Flamel. You have come to us today with a request that we allow you, you who has once before enabled a wanton drawing of the Weave, another opportunity to do that same thing. And in support, you offer only a vague theory? I move to dismiss this foolish request and move on to more pressing matters." rattled the man, before sinking back into his seat.

"Very well. All in favor of dismissal, please raise a light." intoned the High Orator, and looked keenly across the chamber. Eventually satisfied, she continued, "The motion to dismiss does not carry. It is denied, and the audience continues unabated." She called on another lit wand, that of a witch sitting in the second row.

"Mister Flamel, while MACUSA and its allies question your surety, know that your word carries great weight with magical america's rightful government." At least three other senators jumped and began shouting in protest, but were silenced by the High Orator. The MACUSA representative continued speaking, "Because of this trust and your superior expertise in these matters, we would be inclined to support this venture. Be warned, however, that this will be the only instance of support for this experiment granted by my government."

The murmuring grew into a crescendo, and Flamel began seeing several camps emerge - MACUSA was one of the largest "governments" represented, being an over-arching attempt to govern the entirety of northern america's magical enclaves. It carried tremendous political weight, and its support spelled good for the experiment being approved. Many of the other ambassadors were talking amongst each other as well.

Eventually, the High Orator rapped her staff onto the floor once more, and called to vote.

It was a tight margin, much tighter than he'd ever witnessed the senate vote, but a series of Veela colonies along the east coast of madagascar eked out the vote to his favor.

"The vote carries. Grandmaster Flamel, you are assigned three representatives from the ICW office for high-energy magics. Additionally, you are assigned three representatives of this senate. Good luck."

Nicholas let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

* * *

_**5th of November, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea** _

It was finally time. Harry's team was ready, they'd ran the calculations again and again, and the Arithmancy supported their plans. There'd been no prophecies warning of anything that could be relating to the Veil, and the stars could not be more right.

The three ICW high-energy magics representatives stood back, one maintaining a shield covered in glistening runes, one holding out his wand like a duelist and maintaining an eagle-eye on Harry's face, and the third sitting on the floor, cross-legged. Harry nodded to the one holding out his wand, and received a nod back.

Turning to his team, he quickly spelled his voice louder.

"Alright, people. We only get one shot at this. Let's do this, just like we practiced."

Carter and Holson, a new recruit into the Veil team, lifted their wands, and the chamber shuddered slightly. There was a rumble in the structure beneath them, and the lines of magic along the walls pulsated stronger for a moment. A bit of dust rained down from the ceiling as the massive bricks slid away, revealing a circular hole in the ceiling, through which the blue sky could be seen.

Harry knelt down to the floor, and began tapping his wand onto the floor, finding a rhythm. Those closest to him could make out his voice whispering the lyrics to a song as his wand tapped onto the stone floor. Just as the observers began finnicking, the first real effect could be felt - with every tap of Harry's wand, there was an accompanying vibration crossing the structure. It grew and grew, and before long, it was as though he was beating the floor with a sledgehammer rather than lightly tapping it with a stick.

There was a noise as well, a deep, reverberating rumbling in the fortress.

Eventually, Harry seemed to have had enough of creating noise, and whipped his wand upwards, without warning. Abruptly, the noise and rumbling was exchanged for silence, before a faint screeching noise made itself known. The lines of magic through Azkaban surged in strength, and everyone present felt an absolute flood of pure, raw, unbridled **POWER** flowing through the chamber. Several hands reflexively reached for wands, only to be shocked away as the tools dissuaded their attempt at drawing them. Even the relatively primitive intelligence inherent to a wand knew to respect power that was beyond it.

Even Harry appeared to be struggling - he stood, sweat beading on his brow, at the center of the chamber - the air warped and wefted around him, and it was apparent that he stood at the exact center of the stream of magic.

There was a roaring in the air, not unlike the aftershocks of a thunderstorm, and the sky dimmed - outside, storm clouds had begun to gather. When the last ray of light was blotted out, Harry finally whipped his wand around and began pirouetting in place. The movement was unnatural, as it did not cease - he simply spun, and spun, and spun, and the magic thickened around him until it was almost tangible.

His team began moving inwards, holding their wands out, and the magic flowed with them into the center of the chamber; Harry gritted his teeth as the sheer power of what he'd called upon became more and more dense around his body.

Outside, the clouds had darkened into a perfect black, and criss-crossing lightning of every color in the rainbow flashed outside the windows.

When his team stood but an arms-length from him, Harry snapped the wand against his forehead, and in an instant, all that could be seen was a figure of pure white, before the light condensed further, into a shining star glowing bright enough to drown out any other light.

The magic condensed further into two points - both sitting in Harry's face. He fell to the floor, gasping for air, as his eyes shone from their sockets like the stars themselves. His form was blurring slightly, and smoke had started wafting away from his clothes - he got up with difficulty, stumbling over to the Veil, which stood monolithic in the chamber, unaffected by anything that had transpired so far.

Leaning heavily against the Veil's frame, Harry screamed - there was light flowing along his arms, burning clothes, flesh, bone and blood alike, crossing into the Veil like a drop of water into a sponge. The Veil itself gave a familiar groan, and its triangles lit up, a mechanical _Clunk_ signifying the unlocking of the internal wheel. Harry fell backwards, body smoking slightly, into the arms of two Unspeakables, and the ceiling above closed itself once more.

The Veil stood, ready and waiting at the center of the chamber.

"We did it, we actually did it." was all Harry whispered as he pressed his hands onto his eyes.

* * *

Harry blinked twice, and the Healer pulled back his wand.

"Looks like you're all good. Potter, I don't recommend you to ever do that again. There's a reason most people explode, and don't think you're immune to the laws of nature just because you had a bit of luck!"

Harry jumped off the cot, feeling alive and vibrant, and thanked the man - he was a bit grumpy, yes, and also scottish, but still one of the best Healers they'd been able to find who was willing to work with Unspeakables. Beckett was his name, and Flamel had nabbed him out of St. Mungo's just a week prior.

Both times he'd drawn the Wyld had been different. He couldn't begin to explain it with words - at that level, Magic had a will of its own. He was well aware that he'd had tremendous luck. An eddy of magic, an errant spell, and his body would have ignited like tinder under a magnifying glass. That level of sheer power just wasn't meant for anyone to access.

He was met by Carter and Hermione in the hallway up to the Veil chamber, and both started talking at him.

"We've run a few tests and-" "-discrepancy in the spell-" "-energy reading is off the charts-" "-slight miscalculation."

Both looked at him expectantly.

"One at a time, please."

Hermione took the opportunity almost instantly.

"I've refined the testing spell, and it should now be able to provide the entire combination. We'd be ready to try it at any time."

Carter followed with "The energy levels in the Veil's metal is off the charts. It's completely saturated with magic."

"And there're no instabilities in the material?"

That had been one of the major concerns. Based on the fragments they'd discovered, the metal the Veil was made from could be destroyed if enough magic was applied.

"No, it seems to simply be holding the magic."

"Well then," He rubbed his hands together as they entered the Veil chamber, "I think we're in business."

* * *

**_6th of November, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

Every charm came back clean. The Veil was active, waiting, and it was completely undamaged.

Flamel had given the go-ahead, and their exploration probe (the animated statue Flamel himself had sent through centuries ago, now re-charmed and with a mirror for a face) stood ready in the chamber.

Hermione was the one who had the most experience with the combi-caster spell (a preliminary name, hopefully), so she led the experiment.

Taking up a stance before the Veil, she held up her hand, vine-wood wand resting atop it. She furrowed her brow, and the wand rose into the air, floating slightly above her hand. Turning her hand onto the Veil, the wand spun until it was vertical.

 _"Septem Signa, Nunc Coeo!"_ she spoke the words for the charm, and her wand began to spin, the Veil mirroring it.

One after the other, symbols began to light up along the frame, and the room began shaking slightly as the sixth was ignited.

Hermione stood her ground, and her wand spun ever closer to the seventh place.

The last symbol lit up, and the Veil stood, silently, for a heartbeat - before making a metallic noise, and exploding inward in a silvery spiral. It exploded outwards before retreating back into a silvery, shimmering surface. It was fully opaque, unlike the transparency that had been there before, and produced a noise that was as otherworldly as it was vindicating.

Cheers broke out across the chamber. Running up to his wife, Ron spun Hermione around while cheering with the rest, there was clapping and celebrating all around. Immediately, most of the room moved forward and began casting spells at the Veil and the surface that had appeared within, several running off afterwards, no doubt to analyze the findings in more detail.

Professionalism restored itself quickly enough, and Harry's team began prepping the probe, checking its enchantments. Meanwhile, Flamel went up to it, and began giving it orders.

"You will walk into the Veil's surface. If you emerge, you will find a stable spot to stand, else you will sit to maintain stability. You will enable your mirror, and wait for further commands."

Nodding at the Veil team, Flamel continued, "Go now."

The statue seemed to square its shoulders, rotated its torso once and began striding towards the silvery surface of the Veil. The first spell they'd applied was a tracker, and several Unspeakables were hunched over a map, a point of light hovering where Azkaban was located.

The statue passed into the Veil's surface, vanishing into it with a _shhhlup_ noise, and the point of light instantly winked out.

"Honestly, I don't know what I expected" said one of them, shrugging.

The mirror that had been connected to its face was still dark, but a few moments later, it too blinked to life - showing the statue facing a stone room, which was illuminated from behind the probe's perspective.

Flamel spoke into the mirror, and the mirror answered - in a glowing script, the statue's enchantments relayed what the spells layered into it were reporting.

_Air appears breathable. Magic appears distorted, not consistent with any ward or natural patterns existing in memory. Floor solid slate, at least 20 centimeters thick. Unknown interference begins scattering magic beyond that point._

"Move forward, please." said Flamel, and with a noticeable delay, the statue took a few steps forward, climbing down a small set of stairs.

_Several insects nearby. Interference prevents any other detection of life._

"Can you determine your location?"

_General location on Earth: Unplottable. Immediate location: stone chamber, approximately 20x20 meters. Ambient temperature, salinity and humidity suggests a nearby ocean. Illumination provided by several windows an-_

The mirror went black, and the writing paused. Across the room, the Veil made a tearing noise, and its surface disappeared, fading into nothing. The triangles remained lit, however.

"What just happened?"

Inspecting the Veil, Hermione reported; "It's still saturated with magic, but not as strongly as before. Maybe a safety feature to prevent wasting power?"

Looking at the rest of the Veil team, they seemed to have come to the same conclusion.

Flamel clapped his hands together.

"Alright! I'd like a thorough examination of all components of the Veil, and a detailed analysis of the difference before this test and afterwards. Let's see if we've damaged it, first of all."

* * *

Every test was clear - except for a slight loss of magical saturation, the Veil was completely undamaged, ready to be used again.

Immediately, Flamel contacted the ICW, and reported success. Over the next week, several ICW agents appeared and independently confirmed the result. There was a vote, and an overwhelming majority voted to keep control of Azkaban and the Veil in the hands of the DoM.

Meanwhile, Azkaban itself was almost feverishly busy. It had been decided that a small group would be sent through, consisting of one of the Unspeakables on the Veil team, a curse-breaker, an elite ICW soldier, a healer, and two magi-archeologists. There was some grumbling about allowing the two goblins into Azkaban, but this grumbling ceased when their credentials became clear. They were the best of the best - nearly two centuries of archeological experience, certifications of combat readiness, and very good reputations shut up any naysayers.

* * *

**_16th of November, 2010 - Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

The 16th dawned a cold, windy day in Azkaban. The weather around the island had still not recovered fully, but at least the clouds were gone, now.

Assembled in the Veil chamber was the team that would be going. Harry, the team leader - A familiar person to Harry, Bill Weasley, the curse-breaker chosen for the mission - The two archeologists, Senos Kel and Bûded - Healer Beckett, who had volunteered, surprisingly enough - and a serious-looking ICW agent outfitted in dark and imposing dragonhide armor who insisted on being called "Soldier" or "Guard".

Harry was checking over his gear one last time.

Wands. After his Holly wand had been damaged, he'd worked for days poking at it with the Elder Wand until he found a way to repair the scorched wood. The Elder Wand seemed to follow him around, but he did not like using it. It tended to make any spell more vicious and lethal than he truly intended, and as such, it was holstered below his main one, as a backup.

Backpack. Enchanted to be lighter, but not bigger on the inside. Harry's team, being mostly from the Space Chamber where such things were researched, were very unsure as to the effect an expanded container may exhibit if passed through the Veil. They tended not to play well with most spells that manipulated space, and the risk was deemed too great. Instead, they were all sporting large backpacks, enchanted to be lighter than they really were.

Supplies. In the event that the other side of the Veil was inaccessible or impossible to activate, each of them carried with them at least three months worth of food, and a few days worth of water. Alongside this was a spare set of clothes (not robes, those had been deemed inefficient for the mission even though their enchantability was much greater than the trousers, shirts and jackets they were wearing now), as well as a bedroll and a box of matches.

The clothes on his back - Thick, muggle combat boots, made of some strange plastic compound that was completely waterproof, and even had steel plates above the toes, in order to protect them. They were muggle mostly because wizard shoes followed different design trends - they were usually light, made with a wooden sole and enchanted to all hell to be waterproof, resistant to the elements, allow walking on hot coals or through knee-deep snow. However, this level of magic was deemed too risky for the mission, so the more unwieldy and heavy muggle alternative was chosen instead. Alongside a pair of trousers and a shirt, each of them (save the ICW soldier) wore a jacket made of dragonhide, spelled on the inside to keep the wearer warm or cold, depending on ambient temperature. No spells could be applied to the outside, owing to the material's resistance to magic, but this was the main advantage of the material.

Over the jackets, they all wore ornate armguards made of metal, running from both shoulders down their arms to their hands, designed to protect their hands and arms (a wizard's main tool to do... well, anything, really) and enchanted to resist physical impacts, such as falling rocks or blades.

Harry, as the odd man out with his glasses, had forgone them for the duration of the mission and was instead wearing a pair of enchanted contact lenses. He didn't wear them often (they were itchy, but Luna insisted the feeling would pass and that he looked much more "striking" without his glasses)

All in all, they made an awesome sight. Harry still felt slightly giddy at the prospect of actually stepping into the Veil, at last.

The room slowly cleared, and when Flamel nodded from behind the raised podium set up before it, with the rest of the Unspeakables behind him, Harry raised the floating wand towards the Veil.

 _"Septem Signa, Nunc Coeo!"_ he intoned, focusing on the symbols in his mind's eye. He felt his wand and the Veil spin as one, the Veil's internal mechanisms working through the sequence. It was a strange feeling - not unlike some enchantments he'd studied in the past, many had a mental component, but still undeniably alien and strange.

With the seventh symbol locked into the core crystal, his wand returned to its holster and the Veil's surface exploded outwards, before settling back into the now-familiar silver.

Gathering his courage, Harry came up to the veil, touched its suface, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.


	9. Sun Palace

Blackness.

There was little Harry could perceive, and little of him to perceive anything. It was at once so familiar and so utterly unlike anything he'd ever felt-

Wisps of a swirling light, a glimpse of a starfield-

And he exploded outwards into reality once more, stumbling across the stone floor of a chamber, feeling terribly, terribly cold.

Shivering, he jumped out of the way of his team members, who followed him at similar velocities.

Looking them over, he was glad to see no one was injured, though they were all covered in frost, just as he assumed himself to be.

"Control." he spoke into the hand mirror in his palm, relieved when he saw the projection of the other side, including Flamel and his other colleagues.

"Potter! Are you alright?" spoke Flamel, and his voice was slightly distorted in a way he didn't know mirror transmissions could be.

"We are. Nobody's injured, but the trip was a bit rougher than I thought."

"Good to hear you're alright. We don't know how long the Veil stays open, so I'll say - good luck, remember your objective. We'll try another connection in exactly 24 hours, if we haven't heard back from you until-"

The image in the mirror froze, then winked out, alongside the flickering light behind them. Quickly taking point, the team readied their wands (and hatchets, in the Goblins' case), and began scouting the room.

Harry himself went up to a raised dais at the other end of the chamber, while the two archeologists took one door, Soldier the other, while Bill and Beckett turned back to look at the Veil's endpoint. Clambering up the stairs, he beheld a pedestal of sorts - the face was familiar, but the fact that it was smashed by a fallen rock did not inspire hope.

Casting the diagnostic spell they'd used for the Veil seemed to work, causing a small illusion of the pedestal to loosen itself from its shattered husk, almost glowing from within because of its complexity. Harry returned to the center of the chamber, meeting up with his team. Bill spoke first.

"This side definitely looks different," he remarked, and Harry had to concur - the Veil's other end looked suspiciously like the fragments recovered from Egypt, "The symbols are constellations, not the lettering on our end, which could mean anything. Maybe they started using the stars as their alphabet or something."

After telling of the smashed pedestal, Harry divided them up into two groups, one for each door, and they began scouting the structure they were within.

It resembled Hogwarts a little, but not really all that much - it was definitely a castle, suspended from a cliff, but it lacked the distinct "flavor" of magic that Hogwarts had. That blanket of power that made one feel safe and protected. Here, they felt isolated and alone.

Scouting the castle took a mere few hours, revealing chamber after chamber of unknown function. One held a pedestal at the center, like the smashed one in the Veil room, and they left it alone - there were apartments, or something like them, a large number of sitting rooms and a large chamber which was split into four quarters, each quarter holding several ascending rows of benches. At the very center was a knee-high crystal, decorated with strange angular patterns and jutting from a metallic pedestal of some kind.

When Harry's team met up with Bill's, they compared finds.

"I believe I know what either this planet or this castle is called." said Senos Kel, pointing at a series of symbols on the wall above the Veil, "See the inscriptions up there? They're somewhat similar to ancient egyptian hieroglyphs, like an evolved form of that language. If I'm translating correctly, that says 'Ra's City of the Sun'."

"Wait, like Heliopolis?" asked Bill.

* * *

**_16th of November, 2010 - Heliopolis_ **

Any effort to plot their location on the map and globe they'd brought was for naught. The spells would fail, go wild or simply explode in a sparkly shower of light. The implications of that did not set Harry at ease. Either Heliopolis somehow blocked all their spells, even those developed in secret by the DoM, or they were not on Earth anymore.

The second option was all but confirmed when night fell, and not one, not two, but three moons appeared over the horizon. They were all mere crescents, but their combined light lit the ocean as strongly than any full moon back on Earth.

Standing on one of the balconies adjoining the Veil room, Harry was suddenly hit by a thought, and raised up his wand.

_"Point me"_

His wand behaved as expected, aligning itself to the north pole, but it seemed to waver a lot. Likely whereever this place was, it did not have a similar magnetic field as Earth.

With this knowledge in mind, he cast the spell once again, this time with the suffix required to truly _point_.

 _"Point me_ Home _"_

The wand spun on his palm for a minute, eventually picking up speed and wavering almost out of control - he was just about to grab it and end the spell when the wand's tip resolutely rose upwards, aimed directly at a bright pinprick in the night sky.

"Well I'll be damned."

Harry was surprised that the spell actually worked, even across the apparent distance, and the weird taste in the magic on this planet. It was strange – they could still cast spells, and the spells worked as expected, but it just felt... off.

* * *

**_17th of November, 2010 - Heliopolis_ **

Soldier, for that was the name she had given the team, held vigil over them as they slept. The two goblins and the curse-breaker had spent the entire day going over inscriptions on the walls - not her specialty, but she knew how to recognize a language when she saw one, and the scrawled hieroglyphs were most definitely one.

The three archeologists had managed to translate a great deal - most of it sounding like the scribbles of a madman to her, broken sentences and run-on ramblings over untranslateable words or terms, but the archeologists were unwavering.

The Unspeakable (Those guys were usually creepy as hell, but this one was alright – the fact that he wasn't wearing one of their usual creepy robes probably helped) had spent the day and half the night examining the pedestal and the Veil, poking at the little illusion he'd cast into the air with an increasingly furrowed brow.

He'd get them home, hopefully, though she was not too broken up about it if he did not - having no family or connections to home had been a requirement for the mission, after all.

The Healer had done little outside of occasionally hitting them with a charm and scribbling the into a little notebook, as well as examining some of the strange insects that called the castle their home.

Beside her was the still form of the exploration statue that had been sent through, which they'd made sit down on one of the stone benches in order to use its mirror to communicate when Earth would establish contact once more.

Earth! What a thought that was! She was among the first humans to step a foot off her homeworld, something which was all-but confirmed by the Unspeakable's Pointer Charm.

Suddenly, there was a metallic sound, and she whirled around - just in time to see all seven of the Veil's triangles to glow orange. The sound had woken up the rest of them, and the Unspeakable was scrambling for his wand as the circle came to life, bursting first inwards and then outwards in a wave of what looked like water. When it calmed, the exploration statue's face shimmered to life, projecting the Veil room in Azkaban back at the team.

The Unspeakable filled in his boss through the mirror connection, and they used the opportunity to test if the connection was two-way. The stone she threw never arrived on the other side, which confirmed their fears - they were stranded.

* * *

Flamel was stunned at the revelation of the team's location. The Veil was a gateway to another world, orbiting an alien star. Several Unspeakables who had volunteered for the first team but not been chosen had been clamoring for a chance to enter the thing, and even after being informed that they might never come back, they still requested permission to go to Heliopolis and help out the stranded team.

They were sent through during the mirror call, and the Veil closed itself once more. All in all, Azkaban was five employees lighter, but there had been more going through the Veil alongside his own people - several Unspeakables from America, three aurors and a small group of Goblins.

When Nicholas reported to the ICW about the nature of the Veil, they quickly began mobilizing - a committee was hammered out, consisting of the thirteen largest entities represented in the senate, to oversee the Veil.

All thirteen members of this committee provided a select few volunteers - several dozen wizards, seven centaurs, and a small squad of goblins, both warriors and engineers.

* * *

**_5th of February, 2011 - Heliopolis_ **

It quickly became obvious that the Veil only held a limited amount of charge, and could likely only create a further seven to nine connections until the power placed into it by Harry's tapping of the Wyld would be used up. Because of this limitation, contact was reduced from a daily basis to a weekly one, and after that, to a monthly one.

The base at Heliopolis continued growing, however. After the castle had been thoroughly explored, the squad of goblin engineers got to work, exercising their knowledge to the fullest, and securing both the castle's overall structure, as well as the supports binding it to the cliffside. A series of fault lines were eventually discovered down where the ocean met the cliff, which were quickly and efficiently mended. When the squad was done, their leader proudly boasted that the castle would be able to withstand anything short of a volcano erupting directly below it.

As the base grew and resupply from Earth began growing further and further apart, it was decided to repurpose several of the castle's vacant halls, replacing them with greenhouses to feed the population and provide a small variety of common potions ingredients. The group of Centaurs, who had come through the Veil at the behest of their greek ruling council, began exploring the area around the castle, bringing back samples of unique flora and creating detailed maps of the immediate area - as well as the night sky. Several familiar constellations were visible, but some were slightly distorted; and of course, the major bodies of the solar system were missing, instead replaced by a set of three moons, as well as five other (visible) planets apart from the one Heliopolis was situated upon.

When asked, the Centaurs said that the sky confused them, which was deeply unsettling to anyone who knew of the ease with which they could normally read the stars.

Using these star charts and the direction provided by the pointing charm, the team at Heliopolis was reasonably certain of their position – as seen from Earth, they would be located within the constellation Scorpius, around three and a half light years from Sol, orbiting a red dwarf star that was too dim to be seen from Earth. Indeed, the deep red sunsets, when the star's natural coloring broke through the atmosphere, were one of the highlights of life in Heliopolis.

Eventually, though, the last time a connection from Earth could be established had come. The ICW and Unspeakables back home were still trying to find a way to re-power the Veil, but another Wyld tap so soon after the last, especially in the same location, could cause serious damage to Earth's magic - something which nobody was ready to risk.

The last shipment included one of their more wild-card plans to get them home - one end of a vanishing cabinet, as well as a carefully wrapped, hyper-powered portkey.

They tested the cabinet first - and it proved to be a dismal failure. The cabinet, when closed with the flora sample inside, began rattling and smoking, the runes inscribed on its frame sparking with light and magic. It eventually died down again, and a careful examination of the now-dead cabinet revealed that its enchantment had burned out attempting to equalize both ends. The Portkey was set off, with an identical one attached (this one linked to Heliopolis), but when nothing came back even days later, they presumed that it had likely burned up somewhere along the way.

Portkeys were weird like that - they would shift their cargo into a Leyline and drag it along through the stream of magic, then spit it out somewhere else - but the longer anything was submerged within one of these lines, the more magic it would absorb. This was why longer rides became more violent, as the trip had to be shortened accordingly, and why intercontinental portkeys were designed to burn into ash (in order to give the absorbed magical flux a meaningful outlet).

It had been a long shot, anyway - nobody truly knew if there was a leyline connection between star systems - indeed, none of them had been able to douse a Line in the immediate area around Heliopolis in the first place. Many argued that the planet must have them, as without leylines, magic could not flow and life could not flourish, but others pointed to the still-unknown aberration in the planet's magical field for evidence that perhaps the magic of this world was based on something different than that of Earth.

It was this abberation, as well as the possible nonexistence of Leylines, that made them wary of tapping this planet's magic to go back to Earth. Earth's magic was known, recorded, documented - who knew what this planet's magical presence was like, if it would even allow itself to be tapped.

In the absence of a meaningful government, a quiet agreement had come to pass, also. All three groups of magical beings, centaurs, goblins and humans, voted (unofficially or officially) for a person to represent their interests, and these three "leaders" would then debate amongst themselves to determine what to do next. Unsurprisingly, the wizards had almost unanimously voted for Harry, the centaurs had chosen their eldest and wisest, a a woman named Silvina, and the goblins had already had a hierarchy before coming through the Veil in the first place, in their expedition leader Sulân Vehl.

* * *

**_5th of March, 2011 – Heliopolis_ **

They were stumped. Most of Harry's original Veil team had joined them in Heliopolis, but they could not get anywhere with this side. It was completely unlike the one on Earth, both in its function, its insides and the way it seemed to interpret information. Their 'dialling spell' did successfully connect to the Veil on this side, But it refused to do anything.

They hemmed and hawed at the pedestal, which was undoubtedly the source of the issue – no power meant no connection, they knew that from the Earth side, but even Earth's veil gave some response to their prodding, even when it had been totally and utterly dead. But then, Earth's Veil had not been damaged - this side of the Veil seemed to be powered by the pedestal in a fashion they didn't understand, and with the pedestal smashed, the internal ring was completely locked in place.

It was like the pedestal was an integral part of this type of Veil, one that was integrated into its Earth counterpart. Apart from the unknown nature of the Wyld on this side, they also did not know how this new type of Veil would react to large quantities of magic – but judging from the shattered ring fragments they had on Earth, the answer to that was "not good".

Their detection spell for the material the Veil was built from (they really needed a name for that) was also useless, as the entire castle seemed to be infused with the stuff in some way.

They eventually did find a way to selectively power individual crystals inside the pedestal, but the large core one was completely shattered. Powering one of the crystals underneath a symbol gave a signal, some sort of "ping" to the Veil, but the core crystal inside did not acknowledge this signal.

And then there was the issue of not knowing Earth's symbols.

* * *

**_20th of March, 2011 – Heliopolis_ **

On a cloudy morning, one of the Unspeakables examining the Veil had an epiphany. The woman quickly called together those colleagues who had also stayed the night, and began drawing an illusion into the air, sloppy lines of light forming a rough cube.

"We've wondered why the symbols are arrayed in an order of seven, right?" she asked rhetorically – that was one of the biggest questions around.

"The ones on the Earth Veil are letters, or numbers, or something, but on this one, they aren't! So I had the thought – what does the 'address' of this planet look like on this Veil? Mapping them out is slightly difficult, as this one has three more symbols in its ring, but disregarding those and counting up from the base symbol, I got six constellations, as well as the base one. Disregarding the base one for the moment, I tried mapping the six out into the night sky-"

She waved her wand, and six constellations appeared towards the edge of the cube,

"-and they're almost complete opposites. If I draw a line..."

She drew three lines, each connecting two opposing symbols,

"... they all cross, right here, right at this point. And guess where Heliopolis is located."

Her team members were nodding along, running it through their heads – it made sense, to define an address as the location itself. It was done the same way when sending a letter by owl.

"But what of the base symbol?"

"Well, where do you come from? It must be... I don't know, some sort of identifier for your own location. Say, Heliopolis' base symbol is right here, and let's pretend that's Earth's address, then the portal would form a direct line between the base symbol and the cross."

"We need the boss. And Silvina."

* * *

**_3rd of April, 2011_ **

Finding what was (hopefully) Earth's order of symbols was trivial after they'd discovered the way the Veil determined addresses. They chose all constellations that were visible from Earth, arranged them into a cube, and narrowed them down into the six that fit Earth's position the best. They could not find a perfect match, and Harry theorized that this may have been caused by stellar drift, which would have shifted the constellations in various ways, causing the cross to not be entirely accurate.

Perhaps the Veil itself would compensate.

Now all they needed was power. And a lot of it.

* * *

**_12th of May, 2011 - Heliopolis_ **

After four months of no contact with Earth, the Storm hit.

The way the castle shook in the gale-force winds was terrifying, as were the lightning strikes outside and the titanic waves crashing against the cliffside below. The fact that Heliopolis remained standing at all wiped out any lingering prejudice against the Goblins among them, for it had been their work in reinforcing the structure that saved them all.

However, the storm did not just bring bad news - while staring out of one of the windows, Bûded, one of the archeologists of the original expedition team, was in awe of the raw power nature commanded.

 _Power._ he thought to himself.

'Power...' he muttered.

"POWER!" he shouted, startling several of the people passing by behind him.

* * *

A plan was quickly concocted, and deemed doable. They would attempt to channel the storm's power into the Veil, and see what would happen. The Veil's frame was some sort of energy-sponge, it could seemingly absorb anything, so why not the lightning of a thunderstorm?

Every able wizard was given a spot in the chain, placed within the corridors and carefully instructed how to let the energy flow through their wands without touching their bodies. Directing lightning was luckily a relatively simple thing for a wizard or witch, one aided by their rubber soles. No, the dangerous part was finding lightning to redirect. One of them would have to climb the roof and draw the storm into their wand, then direct this raw power through the chain, into the castle, through the corridors and finally into the Veil, where Hermione (having come through with one of the first resupply shipments) would be waiting to cast the dialing spell.

When he felt sufficiently hyped up, Harry took his spot at the very top of the chain, hanging onto one of the highest towers of the castle, face pelted by rain and wind. Below him, there was a window, with one of his fellow Unspeakables leaning out, clutching their own wand, and on it went through the corridors.

Harry took a deep breath, and raised his wand.

He felt like a fool for a second, until the heavens seemingly answered his challenge, and the first bolt of lightning struck his wand like the wrath of the gods.

Harry set himself apart from the power, the raw potential it represented, and did not attempt to hang on to it - which, miraculously, made the bolt jump on, from his wand to the one of the Unspeakable below him. One after the other, the heavens struck out at him, causing his hand to tremble; a flimsy piece of wood and phoenix plumage the only thing between him and the killing power of a thunderstorm.

Eventually, he felt the previously agreed signal, a vibrating of his communication mirror, and clambered down the tower, quickly joining the growing crowd that swept towards the Veil chamber.

Hermione stood before the flickering, erratic Veil, evidently attempting to stabilize the portal, while another one of his colleagues was waving their wand across the exploration probe's mirror-face, which was filled with wisps of the other side, the unfamiliar veil chamber at Azkaban. He gently pushed the man to the side, and hooked his wand into the mirror spell, bending it just so - the connection began clearing up, no longer flickering, but it still skipped in places, aligned with those instants when the Veil's portal lost its blue glow into a violent flicker.

"Potter? - you? How a - ou! You're bre - er here, Can - em to s - e signal."

"Nick! Yes, it's me! We managed to get enough power from a storm to make the portal open, but we won't be able to send anyone through!"

"It's good to he - om you. We've all been worr - bout you, since - Veil lost power o - is side. We've been – ing on someth - ut no results yet."

"We might have a solution!" Harry looked over to Hermione, who was gritting her teeth and shaking her head. He turned back to the mirror. "Listen, we don't have much time. Remember the pedestal! You need to use the pedestal!"

"Pedestal? Har - hat do you me-"

Hermione dropped her wand, sinking to the floor, where she was caught by two of her colleagues. The Veil flickered once more, and finally tore closed.

* * *

**_14th of May, 2011 – Azkaban, The North Sea_ **

It took the team at Azkaban only a few short hours to figure out which "pedestal" Harry had meant. The thing had been stored away somewhere, but after digging it out of storage, they got to work tearing into it and trying to figure out how it actually connected to the Veil.

It was broken, shattered like the ring had been, but its crystalline insides were mostly intact. Using the same spell they'd developed to peer into the Veil's insides, they also did so to the pedestal's surviving crystals – revealing even more complex and enigmatic patterns. There was a general backflow of information from the large, orange core crystal when they input energy into those crystals beneath the buttons on the pedestal, but other than that, the pedestal's core seemed completely dead.

It was only when Carter, who'd remained on Earth, managed to map out the core crystal's patterns, that they began going somewhere. It was discovered that the core seemed to draw power from somewhere, but it was not clear where – it was like the crystalline structure seemed to fold into itself at the very center, bending into a direction that didn't exist. This strange, twisted point was where all lines of magic seemed to converge, so they did what any sane person would do – bridge it. They poked into the energy patterns and cut any connection to and from this twist in space, then went down to the Ward stones and attempted to attune these cut and bridged segments directly into the ward matrix.

By all rights, it shouldn't have worked. It was a shot in the dark, a last ditch effort – but it did work. The core seemed to 'talk' to the ward matrix in a manner they didn't understand, attuning itself to the wardstones, and in turn, also the conflux they fed from. The dead crystal gained a faint glow from within, and even though there were occasional sparks from the ward stones, there seemed to be no imminent catastrophe.

* * *

**_1st of June, 2011 – Heliopolis_ **

It had taken them little time at all to figure out how to turn on what they now called "the library". Translating it, however, was a whole other beast.

The pedestal at the center of the chamber would come alive when approached, and some gestures could navigate it like pages of a book, shifting through the four different kinds of writing on the walls, as well as the strange shapes at the ceiling.

Two of the languages on the walls were familiar, at least in passing, to most of those living in Heliopolis - one was undoubtedly related to nordic runes, while the other was startingly similar to the symbols found on Earth's Veil. However, looks was mostly where the similarities ended.

The runic language was strange, complex and almost indecypherable - only the barest grasp of meaning could be derived from the common methods of translating this kind of rune. The archeologists' best guess was that whatever this language was, it was an infinitely more complex version, or perhaps a more advanced predecessor, of the elder futhark. It held a hefty amount of completely alien runes, and what runes were familiar to the earthlings were placed in spots that made no sense.

The other language, that which was so similar to the symbols on the Veil, was even more undecypherable. However, translation of this language was aided greatly by the author of the strange variation of egyptian - the ramblings and unfamiliar terms quickly became obvious as attempts to translate the Veil-language, and through this proxy, they began gleaning more and more of what was written on the wall.

"It's a message of some kind. A greeting, maybe." said one of the archeologists, a stout goblin with keen eyes.

"How can you tell?" asked Harry, having taken a break from working on the Veil's endpoint to observe the translation effort in the library.

"We had a breakthrough just this morning - someone suggested that perhaps, the four languages on the walls define or lay out their owners, who then communicate through the language on the ceiling. It would be an easy way to create common ground among several groups, like, say if you wrote a greeting in English, and I wrote a greeting in Kûhn. We tried putting the Nordic and the Veil language in relation to each other, and even though the Nordic one is largely incomprehensible, what scraps of it we have been able to translate matches up with identical segments of the Veil language's wall. For instance, the very first part of both texts seems to be a form of 'I am' or 'we are'."

"And if you're correct, then that means..."

"That we've found a rosetta stone for five alien languages, yes."

"five? I thought it was four – those on the walls."

"You're forgetting the hieroglyphs written by our crazy friend. Even though we've managed to translate bits and pieces, most of it escapes us. With this, we might be able to cross-reference the languages against eachother."

* * *

**_14th of June, 2011 - Heliopolis_ **

On the 14th, the Veil burst to life once more, unexpectedly. Those already in the chamber readied their wands, mostly as a precaution, and lowered them once more when the mirror in the nearby statue's face sprung to life.

Upon it was visible the exhausted, but also exhilerated, face of Nicholas Flamel.

"We did it!" were the first words from his mouth, followed by a demand for a status report from Harry.

He filled Flamel in on their status, the circumstances of their last contact during the storm and the fact that there were no serious illnesses or deaths. Then, he asked the question everyone in Heliopolis wanted to know the answer to.

"How'd you make contact?"

"Through a lot of trial and error, Potter. Carter was invaluable, but if Granger had stayed she'd have finished a lot sooner. The answer is relatively simple - we took apart the remains of the pedestal on Earth, at your prompting, and then took apart its insides. There's some sort of 'twist' inside it, probably what powers it, and we just bridged that twist with our ward stones"

"You didn't."

"Oh, believe you me, we did! Carter attuned the thing to Azkaban's wardstones, and whoever made the Veil is a god damn genius, because it's like the thing talked to our stones. I've never seen anything like it. We had a few ICW people come over, and they discovered that whatever this crystal is made from, it can focus magic like nobody's business."

"Focus magic?"

"Let me put it this way - if you put a sliver of that thing into a wand, your Hover Charm could rip a house from the ground. And then it would explode, obviously."

"Obviously" said Harry with a grin.

"We set it into the ceiling, over the Veil on this side, connected to the ward matrix. You should've seen it, Potter - damn thing drained the wards almost instantly, as well as the conflux beneath Azkaban, but it's already started to regenerate."

Harry gave a low whistle. Leyline confluences were _seriously_ powerful. Hogwarts had been built on one, a conflux of seven Leylines, the fifth largest known to exist on Earth, but the one beneath Azkaban was no slouch either - three lines crossed beneath the fortress, enough to power the almost unbreakable unplottability and misdirection charms projected over the island. The fact that the Veil almost drained one of the most powerful sources of magic on the planet was incredible.

"From there it was child's play. We dialled you up, and the connection is holding – with no observable negative effect on anything here."

"So a connection from Earth is possible again? We haven't had as much luck on this end. The only real source of power here was the storm, and the magical field of this planet. But we don't know enough about it to risk tapping it."

"More sensible than usual, Potter?" Flamel grinned, then continued, "In any case, expect some reinforcements. We've had the ICW scrambling for more opportunities to send people through."

"More people?" Harry frowned, "We might not have much space for any more. And without knowing what the castle is built from, I doubt we can actually expand it. If a storm like that happens again-"

"Son, what do you think we've been working on these past few months? The ICW has been cooking up some incredible weather-wards while Carter and your colleagues were focusing on creating a connection. Alongside your resupply and reinforcements are a handful of ICW specialists, as well as a team of goblin warders. We're building a city, Potter. The first magical city on an alien world."


End file.
